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THE 

FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

THE STORY OF FIVE YEARS 
IN POLAR REGIONS 



BY 
VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 

AUTHOR OF 
*'mY life with the ESKIMO" 



ILLUSTRATED 



jOeto gorfe 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1921 

All rights reserved 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 






Copyright, 1921, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1921. 



NOV 30 1921 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Company 

New York, U. S. A. 



g)G!.A630516 



PREFACE 

By Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 
who was commander of the expedition 

IN reading the books of other explorers I have commonly found 
tedious the long accounts of how their expeditions were organ- 
ized. My own inclination is to say nothing about the organiza- 
tion of the expedition that resulted in the story told in this volume, 
but many of my friends say that an account of the organization is 
both important and interesting. I shall compromise between their 
judgment and my own feelings by a short and general account where 
they advise a long and detailed one. 

The plans of this my third polar expedition developed in my 
mind gradually during the years 1908-12 while I was engaged in 
the work of the second expedition. Our experience was then show- 
ing us day by day the friendliness and fruitfulness of those parts 
of the Arctic which are either inhabited by Eskimos or which are 
immediately adjacent to the Eskimo districts. But I was told by 
the Eskimos, and I had read the same before in geographies and 
works of exploration, that the vast unknown areas beyond the 
Eskimo frontier were devoid of animal life. The Eskimos agreed 
with the rest of us in thinking that no one could live in those regions 
except for brief periods, and then only by taking along enough 
supplies to last for the whole period of what must necessarily be a 
dash into and a hurried retreat out of a region of permanent desola- 
tion. 

But I am an anthropologist by profession, and the very reason 
for the beginning of my work in the North was a desire to learn 
whatever I could about the Eskimos. I had during these five or 
six years of continuous residence learned that the Eskimos resemble 
an uninstructed peasantry in possessing a large measure of native 
intelligence lying fallow, lacking opportunities of instruction and 
development. The ignorant classes of all countries have positive 
beliefs about many things, and a large number of these beliefs have 
no foundation in fact. I had long since learned that the Eskimos 
are honest and intelligent, but that they have a higher percentage 



vi PREFACE 

of unfounded beliefs than any white people with whom I have 
associated. 

I could see no natural reason why the regions beyond the Eskimo 
frontier should be devoid of animal life. The fact that the Eskimos 
said so and the fact that geographies and encyclopaedias continue 
to make the same assertion, meant little to me. Professionally, I 
know the foundations of such assertions, and that encyclopsedias 
do their full share in perpetuating the unfounded beliefs of our 
ancestors. I satisfied myself, so far as was possible while actually 
living in the Eskimo country, that the region beyond did not differ 
from the Eskimo country in any essential respect. I concluded the 
presumption to be that animal life could be found even in the very 
center of the icy area. This is a point, as explained elsewhere in 
this book, which lies about 400 miles away from the geographic 
North Pole in the unknown region north of Alaska. No one had been 
nearer to the center of the icy area than Peary when he visited the 
North Pole. Others had concluded from Peary's evidence that since 
he had seen no animal life at the North Pole or between it and 
Greenland, the presumption was that for a greater reason there 
would be no animal life in more remote (because more distant from 
navigable waters) ice-covered areas in the region of maximum inac- 
cessibility.* 

My conclusion was that animal life had not been seen because 
it had not been looked for and because it existed under the ice where 
it would be inconspicuous. Hunting seals under thick polar ice 
resembles hunting as we commonly think of it less than it does pros- 
pecting. Many people had lived for long periods in Pennsylvania, 
tilling the soil successfully and considering themselves thoroughly 
familiar with all local conditions, and nevertheless these people were 
ignorant of the mineral oil contained in the earth below. Seal hunt- 
ing, as will appear in that part of the book where the methods are 
described, is analogous to prospecting for oil. No explorer had had 
that point of view, and it appeared to me that their failure to 
discover seals when they were not looking for them did not reflect 
on their intelligence any more than it reflects on the intelligence of 
Franklin that he lived for a long time in Pennsylvania and died 
in ignorance of even the possibility of the Rockefeller fortune and 
of the other things of more consequence that have hinged upon the 
discovery of oil in Pennsylvania. 

I already knew the methods of securing seals, and came south 
in 1912 firm in the belief that I could go into regions where Eskimos 

*See map showing 'Tole of Relative Inaccessibility," p. 8. 



PREFACE vii 

had never been and into which Eskimos were unwilling to go because 
they believed them devoid of resources, and that I could in these 
regions travel indefinitely, carrying on scientific or other work and 
depending entirely on the resources of the country for food and 
fuel — food being the flesh of animals and the fuel their fat. 

Dr. Anderson and I had just finished, to the entire satisfaction 
of the American Museum of Natural History, a long polar expedi- 
tion under their auspices. On that expedition we had already done 
things which the Museum authorities had supposed to be exceedingly 
difficult or impossible, and we had done them without special effort, 
for we had found the conditions far more favorable than they had 
realized. The Museum authorities were, therefore, in a frame of 
mind to believe me when I told them that the entire polar area was 
as easy to make a living in as the district inhabited by the Eskimos, 
and they were the first to assent to our contention that we could 
travel where we liked, depending on the country for sustenance. 

After securing the support of Dr. Clark Wissler, curator of 
anthropology in the Museum (under whose direction I had carried 
out the expedition of 1908-12), I presented the case for the new 
expedition to Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, the President of 
the Museum. He declined at first to support the expedition, not 
because he lacked confidence in its fundamental principles but 
because the Museum was short of money and because they were 
already organizing another polar expedition — the Crocker Land 
Expedition, commanded by Donald B. MacMillan. They wanted 
me to wait a year or two till other work was off their hands and 
they were in a better position to support an enterprise of this sort. 

Waiting did not suit me at the time, and I accordingly went 
to the National Geographic Society, presenting my case to the 
Director, Mr. Gilbert Grosvenor. Later I presented the same case 
to the Board of Trustees, who were favorably impressed and with 
very little delay voted to give me $22,500. I now went back to 
the Museum and told them that, while I disliked severing my con- 
nection with the institution, I should have to do so unless they came 
forward at once to join the National Geographic Society in their 
support of the present enterprise. Hereupon the Museum made a 
special plea to one of its chief patrons and we soon had the further 
promise of $22,500. 

In Boston, the Harvard Travelers' Club, of which I had been 
a member for many years, lent its moral support promptly to the 
expedition and later on decided to contribute $5,000. In Philadel- 
phia my old friend, Henry G. Bryant, who was then President of 



viii PREFACE 

the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, undertook to raise some 
money and presently secured from one wealthy patron a pledge to 
buy a ship for the expedition, and from another the promise that he 
would outfit the ship. 

Had these generous promises from Philadelphia come a week 
sooner than they did the expedition would doubtless have remained 
under American auspices, for when you have a ship promised and 
also the outfitting of that ship, you have taken care of the major 
expenses of an expedition. The $50,000 secured from the three 
organizations mentioned above would have been amply sufficient 
to cover other expenses. However, a week before my receipt of 
Mr. Bryant's letter I had gone to Canada to lay the situation before 
Sir Robert Borden, who was then Prime Minister. 

My first polar expedition, that of 1906-07, had been paid for 
jointly by the Universities of Harvard and Toronto. The money 
given me by Toronto University was actually contributed by Sir 
Edmund Walker, the President of the Canadian Bank of Commerce. 
As a result of this. Sir Edmund had continued his interest in my 
polar work. When I now went to Canada, Sir Edmund Walker 
lent me warm support in my representations at Ottawa. He did 
this by letter, while another eminent Canadian, Sir Edmund Osier, 
President of the Dominion Bank, gave me personal support, for he 
was then a member of the House of Commons. My second expedi- 
tion had been under the joint auspices of the American Museum 
of Natural History and the Geological Survey of Canada. The 
Director of the Survey, Mr. R. W. Brock, had therefore been in 
direct touch with my work for several years. He was at once willing 
to use his entire influence with the Government, and went with 
me to see the Prime Minister. 

My idea at the time was that the Canadian Government might 
join in the support of this expedition as they had already joined 
in the support of the previous one. The Prime Minister said, how- 
ever, that while he was inclined to support my plans, he felt them 
so important and so directly a concern of Canada that he would 
prefer that the Canadian Government should undertake the whole 
responsibility and the whole expense of the enterprise. I replied 
that I could scarcely make to the American scientific organizations 
the proposal of transfer, but suggested that in case he should open 
negotiations I would inform them of my entire willingness to sur- 
render the expedition to the Canadian Government. 

Sir Robert Borden then wrote letters to Professor Henry Fair- 
field Osborn, President of the American Museum of Natural His- 



PREFACE ix 

tory, and to Mr. Gilbert Grosvenor, the Director of the National 
Geographic Society, offering to take over the expedition. He assured 
them that the scientific program, as already outlined under their 
auspices, would be carried out by the Canadian Government, that 
the expedition would be sent out that present year, and that the 
entire command of it would remain in my hands exactly as if the 
work had been under their auspices. In this letter and in the cor- 
respondence that followed between these American institutions and 
the Canadian Government, it was made clear that I was to remain 
the sole judge of the fitness of all men and all materials and that 
the scientific direction of the expedition should in every way remain 
in my hands. That this was made so explicit was due to the fore- 
thought of Mr. Grosvenor, who feared that some politician or other 
at Ottawa might try to influence the course of the expedition, thus 
interfering with its scientific value. 

It was in February, 1913, that the expedition was transferred 
to the Canadian Government. Before that time I had offered the 
position of second in command of the expedition to Dr. R. M. 
Anderson, who had accepted. No other man for that position had 
even occurred to me, for we had been friends since college days and 
had already carried out together successfully an expedition on which 
he had shown himself both admirable as a traveling companion and 
able and diligent as a field observer and scientific collector. 

A man whom I have admired for many years is Captain C. T. 
Pedersen, commonly known to his friends as Theodore Pedersen. 
I had known him in the Arctic since 1906. The winter of 1908-09 
I visited him frequently when he was wintering in his schooner, 
the Challenge, in the ''lagoon" at Point Barrow. We had talked 
over the possibility of an expedition of geographic discovery, where 
I should be in command while he was the sailing master. In my 
mind he was self-chosen for master of whatever ship I might have, 
just as Dr. Anderson was the obvious man for the position of second 
in command. 

Pedersen was now in San Francisco unoccupied. He at once 
accepted not only my offer to be commander of the ship, but under- 
took the task of selecting the best available vessel. A few years 
before this the whaling trade had come to a sudden stop through 
a drop in the price of whalebone, and there were ten or more whalers 
laid up in various ports on the Pacific coast that were supposed to 
be entirely suitable for further navigation in polar waters. Captain 
Pedersen informed me at once that the choice was between four ships 
— the Herman, Jeannette, Elvira and the Karluk, All these ships 



X PREFACE 

were known to me through association with them in polar waters, but 
I had not the intimate knowledge of them possessed by Captain 
Pedersen. I authorized the employment of expert ship inspectors, 
who soon reported that the Elvira was unsound, but that the other 
three ships were in good condition. They agreed with Captain 
Pedersen that the best of them was the Karluk. On the strength 
of the backing secured from the American organizations I had 
. already concluded the purchase of the Karluk before the expedition 
was transferred to the Canadian Government, whereupon she was 
resold at cost to the Government. 

With the authority and resources of a nation behind us, we 
now had the opportunity of organizing the most comprehensive polar 
expedition that ever sailed, for no expedition in history has been 
so fortunately situated. In some cases naval expeditions have been 
sent out by governments, but in those cases the purposes have not 
been primarily scientific. In expeditions that have been primarily 
scientific governments have sometimes taken a limited part and 
have granted lump sums of money. We had a more liberal backing, 
for Canada decided to stint us in nothing that might contribute to 
scientific success. 

The selection of the scientific staff was the first consideration. 
The sciences to be investigated were anthropology (archseology, 
ethnology, somatology), biology (botany and zoology, both ter- 
restrial and marine) , geography, geology, mineralogy, oceanography, 
terrestrial magnetism. In a scientific staff suitable to carry out 
investigations in all these sciences there are sure to be men who 
can accumulate knowledge in other departments also. In that sense 
such a polar expedition can make all knowledge its province. The 
sciences named turned out to be by no means the only ones that 
benefited by the work of our scientific staff. 

It appeared at once that, although we preferred Canadians, it 
was not possible to secure an adequate scientific staff in Canada. 
In general, we wanted men in whom university training was merely 
the foundation and who had after graduation settled upon one of 
these sciences as his life work. Half of our staff had academic 
training equivalent to that of a Doctor of Philosophy. We were 
able to secure only five out of our staff of fifteen in Canada. Even- 
tually it was made up as follows: from Canada 5, from Great 
Britain 3, from the United States 2, from Australia 1, from New 
Zealand 1, from Denmark 1, from Norway 1, and from France 1. 

The following is a partial list of the universities represented in 
^ the training of these men, partial because several of them had been 



PREFACE xi 

in two or more universities: Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, McGill, Oxford, Queens, the Sorbonne, State Univer- 
sities of Iowa and North Dakota, Toronto, Universities of Edin- 
burgh and Glasgow, Yale, and technical schools in Norway, Den- 
mark and Australia. Four of the men had previously been on polar 
expeditions: Mackay and Murray with Shackleton, Johansen with 
Mylius Erichsen in Greenland, and Anderson with me. Mamen had 
been on a Norwegian surveying expedition to Spitsbergen. 

This list shows that we had to go all over the world to secure 
our scientific staff. Jenness had just returned to New Zealand from 
anthropological work in New Guinea, and Wilkins of Australia 
was in the West Indies. Both of these were secured by cable corre- 
spondence. Johansen, the Dane, was engaged in Washington, and 
Mamen, the Norwegian, in Canada. I made a trip to Europe which 
resulted in the engagement of Bench at, Mackay, Murray and 
McKinlay. 

This European trip was partly to secure scientific men and partly 
to get equipment, especially in the field of oceanography. In this 
work I was greatly aided by Dr. W. S. Bruce, of the Scottish Ocean- 
ographical Laboratory, by Sir John Murray, and by the Prince of 
Monaco. 

While I was in Europe I received the first bad news of the expedi- 
tion, the resignation of Captain Pedersen. Some one had induced 
him to believe that he would have had to change his American citi- 
zenship for Canadian in order to be master of the Karluk. How ill- 
founded this belief was is best shown by the fact that we replaced 
him by Captain Bartlett who, although born in British territory, 
had become an American citizen and retained his citizenship 
throughout the expedition. Captain Bartlett had been master of 
the Roosevelt under Peary, and had extensive experience with ice 
navigation in Atlantic waters. 

Apart from the comprehensiveness of the scientific scope of the 
expedition and the large number of scientists, this expedition did 
not in its outfitting differ materially from that of the recent polar 
expeditions. The outfitting is, therefore, not worth describing. It 
was most effectively handled by the Canadian Navy Yard at 
Esquimalt, near Victoria, British Columbia. 

The direction of the expedition was under the Canadian 
Department of the Naval Service, and therefore at first under the 
Honorable D. J. Hazen, and later the Honorable C. C. Ballantyne. 
The expedition was directly under the Deputy Minister, the Hon- 
orable G. J. Desbarats, who through five years kept in personal 



xii PREFACE 

touch with every detail of it in spite of the cares and labors incident 
to the rapid expansion of the Department of the Naval Service 
under war conditions. The material outfitting was in charge of 
Mr. J. A. Wilson, who was then Director of Naval Stores. In 
Esquimalt the outfitting was handled by Mr. George Phillips, who 
accompanied us to Nome, and to whose personal care the expedition 
owes a great deal. 

The equipment of the expedition kept growing and growing under 
our hands, and for several reasons; especially that for the oceano- 
graphic work was more bulky and difficult to operate than we had 
at first realized. Furthermore, we had a scientific staff who were 
in the main inexperienced in polar matters, but who, nevertheless, 
had definite ideas of what outfit they must have in order to get 
along. In some part their ideas were justified by eventual experi- 
ence, but to a considerable degree our efforts to please them 
resulted in the hampering of the expedition. It was one of the few 
drawbacks of our fortunate situation of ample financial resources 
that we had continually to yield to the argument that after all we 
could buy and carry this or that if we only wanted to, and that 
all we would lose in case the thing were not needed would be its 
money value and the cost of carriage. 

For reasons entirely apart from equipment I had decided to 
divide the expedition into two sections: one under the charge of 
Dr. Anderson to operate in the vicinity of Coronation Gulf; and 
the other under my immediate charge to strive towards the pole of 
inaccessibility and to have geography for its main objective where 
the southern branch carried forward more detailed and varied 
scientific studies. This plan necessitated two ships, the Karluk for 
the geographic work, and the Alaska to take the scientific men to 
Coronation Gulf. Later on our outfit grew so that we had to 
purchase the Mary Sachs in Nome to act as a tender to both sections 
of the expedition and incidentally to carry on oceanographic work 
under the command of our chief oceanographer, Murray. Later 
on the loss of vessels and the diversion of others to work not 
originally intended necessitated the purchase of further ships. These 
latter purchases are explained in the text of the narrative, for they 
form a part of the story in the field. 

I know myself fortunate, and suppose myself exceptionally 
fortunate in having many loyal and willing friends. Many of these 
have helped with this book and some have forbidden me to attach 
their names to any printed mention of their doing so. To mention 



PREFACE xiii 

the others would seem invidious. Grateful as I am, I shall, therefore, 
refrain from attempting to express my gratitude to persons and shall 
merely make a formal acknowledgment to institutions. 

I am in the first place indebted in general to the Government 
of Canada and in particular to the Department of the Naval Service 
for allowing the use of photographs and other material gathered 
on the expedition. This was provided for in my original agreement 
with the Government when they assumed all obligations to me which 
had previously been entered into by the National Geographic Society 
and the American Museum of Natural History. 

The maps were made for the Department of the Naval Service 
by the Geodetic Survey of Canada. A few of the photographs used 
in this book were taken on my expedition of 1908-12. These are 
the property of the American Museum of Natural History and are 
used by their consent. The photographs of musk oxen under domes- 
tication are used by courtesy of the New York Zoological Society. 
Two photographs used in this volume are reproduced from my 
previous book, "My Life With the Eskimo," because I had no new 
pictures which illustrated equally well certain points that had to 
be brought out. 

Most of the photographs used in this volume were taken either 
by myself or by George H. Wilkins, the ofiicial photographer of the 
expedition, who was with us by a special arrangement with the 
Gaumont Company of Great Britain. Some photographs of vegeta- 
tion and of insect life were taken by Frits Johansen, our botanist, 
entomologist and marine biologist. Through a defect in my records 
it is possible that two or three of the photographs were taken by 
other members. However that be, all the expedition photographs 
are used not by permission of the original takers, but in a few cases 
by permission of the Geological Survey of Canada, and in the 
majority of cases by permission of the Department of the Naval 
Service, whose property they are. 

It is possible that minor alterations will be made hereafter in 
the maps of the expedition. Those published in this volume should, 
therefore, not be considered final and authoritative. Those require- 
ments will be filled by the official maps of the Government to be 
issued from Ottawa probably during the year 1922. 

All technical publications except certain preliminary reports 
published in technical journals will be issued by the Government 
as rapidly as possible. 

Such new place names as appear on the maps included in this 
book are those of men (and in one or two cases women) who have 



xiv PREFACE 

been directly concerned in polar exploration. Preference has been 
given to members of the expedition. On the large scale maps as 
finally published by the Government every member will be com- 
memorated, but in this volume some names have had to be omitted 
because of the scale of the maps. Next after members of the expe- 
dition come polar explorers, and in particular those who have worked 
in the general region covered by the expedition. There are also the 
names of a few men who have been resident in the Far North for a 
long time, as whalers, traders, police, and the like. 

The most conspicuous features of the map have been named after 
those high officers in the Canadian Government who were directly 
instrumental in having this expedition sent north, or who have done 
something since then through acts while in office to promote polar 
exploration. 



FOREWORD 

By Gilbert Grosvenor, LL.D. 
President of the National Geographic Society 

UNDER WHOSE DIRECTION THE ORGANIZATION OF THE EXPEDITION 

WAS BEGUN 

October 18, 1921. 
The Macmillan Company, 
64 Fifth Avenue, 
New York City. 

< ( "W" AM sending you enclosed the introduction which you have 
I requested me to prepare. It may seem to you at first rather 
-^ long, but I would ask you to note that my own part of it is 
very short. 

"It seemed to me very desirable that the tributes to Stefansson 
by Admiral Peary and General Greely should be incorporated in this 
introduction, particularly as this address by Admiral Peary was 
his last public appearance. Peary had been very sick for months, 
but I realized his friendship for Stefansson, and so I asked him if 
he would not come and present Stefansson to our audience. We 
{Peary and I) knew at the time that it was to be Peary's last public 
appearance. I hope you can use his address and Greely's, because 
these tributes were deliberately prepared by them and have great 
historical value. In fifty years these words of praise by Peary and 
Greely will be valued very highly, but they will be forgotten unless 
tied up in a book. They will mean more to the future than any 
words of mine. 

"Yours very truly, 
(Signed) "Gilbert Grosvenor." 



When in the winter of 1913 Stefansson expressed a desire to 
resume his northern explorations and was seeking financial help, the 
Research Committee of the National Geographic Society, impressed 

XV 



xvi FOREWORD 

by the quality of his earlier work, by his originality and resource- 
fulness, offered to subscribe $22,500 to his expedition. The Amer- 
ican Museum of Natural History generously duplicated this sub- 
scription. 

As the plans progressed, it became apparent that more funds 
would be needed for the expanding program, and Mr. Stefansson, 
with the approval of the above organizations, approached the 
Premier of Canada to ascertain if the Canadian Government desired 
to participate in the work. Sir Robert Borden immediately offered, 
on behalf of the Dominion, to assume the entire expense of the 
expedition if the National Geographic Society and the American 
Museum of Natural History would agree to relinquish their claims. 
On our cheerfully acceding to Sir Robert's wish, because of our faith 
in Stefansson and our desire to see his important project adequately 
undertaken, we received the following very pleasant letter from 
the Canadian Premier: 



PRIME minister's OFFICE, CANADA. 



"Ottawa, Ont., 21st February, 1913. 

"Dear Sir: Mr. Stefansson has shown me your letter of the 11th 
instant, stating that you are willing to forego your claims to a 
share in his exploration of the northern waters of Canada, and to 
cancel the arrangements which you had so generously made to con- 
tribute towards the expenses of this undertaking, and I wish to 
thank you for your courtesy in withdrawing in favor of this Gov- 
ernment. 

"We are most appreciative of the valuable results obtained by 
Mr. Stefansson's explorations in the northern part of the American 
continent, which have given valuable information as to this com- 
paratively unknown portion of the Dominion of Canada, and have 
to thank you for the part you took in assisting Mr. Stefansson in 
that work. The Government of Canada feels, however, with regard 
to the present exploration, that it would be more suitable if the 
expenses are borne by the Government more immediately interested, 
and if the expedition sails under the flag of the country which is 
to be explored. The Government is, however, desirous that the 
line of investigation begun by Mr. Stefansson and the members of 
your Association should be continued and would be glad of the 



FOREWORD xvii 

scientific co-operation of your members so as to obtain the best 
results from this expedition. Yours very truly, 

(Signed) "R. L. Borden." 
''Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Esq., 
"Director and Editor, 

"National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C." 

While the National Geographic Society waived its claim, this 
act did not lessen our interest in Stefansson or the admiration with 
which we followed his five and a half years' contest against 
obstacles insuperable to any other man. Our expectation of im- 
portant discoveries by his original methods were realized to such a 
gratifying extent that on his return the highest honor in the gift of 
the Society, the Hubbard Gold Medal, previously won by Peary and 
Amundsen, was unanimously awarded him by the Society's Com- 
mittee on Research. 

Those members who were present when the medal was con- 
ferred will not soon forget that memorable meeting of the National 
Geographic Society, when Stefansson was presented to the mem- 
bers by the two foremost figures in American polar history — Peary, 
discoverer of the North Pole, and Greely, who had wrested from 
Great Britain thirty-seven years before (1882) the record for the 
Farthest North, held by British explorers for 300 years. 

Peary had been seriously sick for many months and really should 
not have risked the fatigue of addressing such a large audience, but 
in his eagerness to say a kind word of appreciation of his friend — 
Stefansson — he overrode his physician's orders. The following 
tribute to Stefansson was Peary's last public address; a few months 
later his heroic voice was still. 



ADMIRAL PEARY's LAST PUBLIC APPEARANCE. 

"Fellow members of the National Geographic Society : 
"To-day we add another to the long list of Polar explorers, both 
north and south, whom our Society has welcomed and to whom our 
members have listened with absorbing interest. 

"Six years ago, in the parlor of a hotel in Rome, I said good-bye 
to a confident young friend of mine who was starting then for home 
in order to begin one of our latest Polar quests. I met him here 
to-day for the first time since then. How much has happened to 



xviii FOREWORD 

him in those six years I need not attempt to relate. Five and one- 
half years of those six this man has been there in the Arctic regions 
adding to the sum of the world's knowledge. Five and one-half 
years ! 

^^It is not my intent to go into a resume of his work. He is going 
to tell you that himself, but I can note very briefly that within that 
time Stefansson has added more than 100,000 square miles to the 
maps of that region — the greatest single addition made for years 
in Arctic regions. He has outlined three islands that were entirely 
unknown before, and his observations in other directions, the delin- 
eation of the continental shelf, filling in of unknown gaps in the 
Arctic archipelago, and his help in summing up our knowledge of 
those regions are in fact invaluable. 

^'Stefansson is perhaps the last of the old school, the old regime 
of Arctic and Antarctic explorers, the worker with the dog and 
the sledge, among whom he easily holds a place in the first rank. 
Coming Polar explorers, both north and south, are quite likely to 
use mechanical means which have sprung into existence within the 
last few years. According to my own personal impressions — aerial 
flights; according to Stefansson, he would like to try his chances 
with a submarine; but whether it be aeroplane or submarine, it will 
mean the end of the old-time method, with the dog and the sledge 
and man trudging alongside or behind them. 

"What Stefansson stands for is this: he has grasped the mean- 
ing of polar work and has pursued his task in the Arctic regions 
section by section. He has profited by experience piled upon expe- 
rience until he knows how to face and overcome every problem of 
the North. His method of work is to take the white man's brains 
and intelligence and the white man's persistence and will-power 
into the Arctic and supplement these forces with the woodcraft, 
or, I should say, polar-craft, of the Eskimo — the ability to live off 
the land itself, the ability to use every one of the few possibilities 
of those frozen regions — and concentrate on his work. 

"Stefansson has evolved a way to make himself absolutely self- 
sustaining. He could have lived in the Arctic fifteen and a half 
years just as easily as five and a half years. By combining great 
natural, physical and mental ability with hard, practical common 
sense, he has made an absolute record. 

"Stefansson has not only fought and overcome those ever-present 
contingencies of the Arctic region — cold and hunger, wet and star- 
vation, and all that goes with them — but he has fought and overcome 
sickness — first, typhoid, then pneumonia, and then pleurisy — ^up in 



FOREWORD xix 

those forbidding regions, and then has been obliged to go by sled 
four hundred miles before finding the shelter of a hospital and the 
care of a physician." 



GENERAL GREELY^S TRIBUTE TO STEFANSSON 

Major General Greely then paid the following memorable tribute 
to the Hubbard Gold Medalist: 

"We come together to welcome back Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 
whose published obituary you have read, but who insists with Mark 
Twain, that the account of his death has been greatly exaggerated. 
However, it told indirectly the tale of his dangers and hardships. 

"Stefansson has several unique Arctic records. His five and a 
half years is the world's record for continuous Polar service. A 
pioneer in living on the game of the region, whether on the ice- 
covered sea or on the northern lands, he also initiated distant 
journeys on the ice-floes of an unknown sea, which carried him 
hundreds of miles from the nearest land. 

"The contributions of his expeditions are important and exten- 
sive. Besides the natural history and geologic knowledge, he has 
made inroads into the million square miles of unknown Arctic 
regions, the largest for many years. His hydrographic work is 
specially important, in surveys, and in magnetic declinations. His 
numerous soundings not only outline the continental shelf from 
Alaska to Prince Patrick Island, but also disclose the submarine 
mountains and valleys of the bed of Beaufort Sea. 

"From the unknown regions of Arctic land and sea he has with- 
drawn areas amounting to approximately 100,000 square miles. 
These discoveries comprise about 65,000 square miles of Beaufort 
Sea to the north of the Mackenzie basin, 10,000 square miles of the 
Arctic Ocean west of Prince Patrick Island, over 3,000 square 
miles along the northeast coast of Victoria Island, and over 15,000 
square miles of land and sea to the northeast of Prince Patrick 
Island. In the last-named region three large and other small islands 
were discovered between latitude 73 degrees and 80.2 degrees north 
and between longitude 98 degrees west and 115 degrees west. 

"These new islands unquestionably fill in the last gap in the 
hitherto unknown seaward limits of the great Arctic archipelago 
to the north of the continent of America. 

"The spirit as well as the material results of exploration should 
be recognized. To-night the borderland of the White Sea is in the 



XX FOREWORD 

thoughts and hearts of many, for there, in the gloom of Arctic 
twilight, and in the cold of a Polar winter, the heroic men of this 
great nation are enduring fearful hardships and periling their young 
lives to restore peace and give freedom to unfortunate Russia. 

"Recall that in the dawn of that nation's history through this 
sea and the port of Archangel only could Russia be reached. More 
than three and a half centuries ago the first great maritime expedi- 
tion of England sailed to the White Sea, and Chancellor's visit had 
potent results in the development of both England and Russia. 

"Of this great voyage Milton said: 'It was an enterprise almost 
heroic were it not for gain.' Stefansson's explorations are untainted 
by motives of materialism. 

"In recognition both of the idealistic spirit and of the geographic 
importance of the discoveries made by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the 
Board of Managers of the National Geographic Society unanimously 
direct me to present to him the Hubbard Medal. 

"It is to be added that the three survivors of the so-called Greely 
International Polar Expedition are too far advanced in years again 
to hazard Polar work; but as explorers of the nineteenth century 
who first wrested from England a record held for three hundred 
years — that of the farthest north — ^they wish to honor the explorer 
of the twentieth century who surpasses them. 

"Appreciative of Stefansson's endurance of hardships, recogniz- 
ing his ability in devising new methods, his courage in testing such 
methods, and his standing as a typical Arctic explorer, the members 
of the Greely Expedition, who are about to die, salute him." 

Thus those redoubtable Arctic heroes, Peary and Greely, paid 
tribute to Stefansson as a pioneer in a new direction; as one who 
had supported himself for years, not partially as his predecessors, 
but entirely on the resources of the Arctic regions. 

As we read the story of his years in the' north, told in this inter- 
esting volume with that modesty in achievement which is so char- 
acteristic and so endearing in Stefansson, we see the Arctic through 
Stefansson's eyes, no longer tragic and desolate, but converted by 
his adaptable spirit and clever creative hand to become fruitful and 
friendly — comfortable and almost jolly. 



INTRODUCTION 

By Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Laird Borden, P.O., G.C.M.G., 

Prime Minister of Canada, 

UNDER WHOM THE EXPEDITION WAS CARRIED OUT. 

EARLY in the winter of 1913 Vilhjalmur Stefansson approached 
the Canadian Government with the view of obtaining assist- 
ance for an expedition to the Arctic regions in or adjacent to 
northern Canada. Support had been promised by the National 
Geographic Society and the American Museum of Natural History 
to the extent of fifty thousand dollars, but this was not enough to 
carry out in full the ambitious scientific and exploratory plans 
which he had formulated and he needed further support. I told 
Mr. Stefansson that while the public spirit, sympathy and co-opera- 
tion of these important institutions were highly appreciated, the 
Government preferred that Canada should assume entire respon- 
sibility for the Expedition, as any lands yet undiscovered in these 
northern regions should be added to Canadian territory. After 
obtaining the consent of the two Societies, he accepted my offer 
to place him in command of the Expedition. By an Order in Council 
approved on the 22d February, 1913, the general direction was 
placed under the Department of the Naval Service, and other im- 
portant departments were directed to co-operate. The history and 
general results of the Expedition thus organized, extending over a 
period of more than five years, have been set forth by Mr. Stefans- 
son in this volume. 

Those who have read Stefansson's "My Life With the Eskimo" 
cannot fail to acknowledge its absorbing interest. Even more in- 
structive and illuminating is the story now related. Many pre- 
conceived ideas of these great northern territories must disappear 
forever. Except for the absence of trees, it is not unusual to find 
within the Arctic Circle landscapes not different in appearance 
from prairie or meadow. A member of the party was astonished 
to find a wide expanse of grass land where he had expected to meet 
an eternal desolation of icy barrenness. Many similar experiences 
are recorded by Stefansson and by others. Animal life is fairly 

xxi 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

abundant on many portions of the land and nearly everywhere in 
the ocean. Birds and insects are in evidence; indeed, certain forms 
of insect life are so abundant that summer is almost unendurable. 
It seems paradoxical that in these Arctic regions the season for 
travel, for exploration and for social enjoyment should begin in 
mid-autumn and end early in spring. Winter night has no terrors 
for the Eskimo or for the white man of normal mental balance. 
The gayest social season among the Eskimos is in the winter months. 
During the war there was scarcity of fuel both in Europe and on 
this continent. In a leading London hotel so uncomfortable did I 
find my sitting-room in December, 1918, that I was constrained to 
seek a supply of firewood from the Canadian Corps, then working 
near Windsor. About that time Stefansson and his party, possessing 
an abundance of fuel, which the country supplied, were sitting in 
their shirt-sleeves, hundreds of miles within the Arctic Circle, com- 
fortably housed in an edifice which was constructed of snow blocks 
in less than three hours, and which with greater experience they 
could subsequently erect in not more than one hour. While we 
shivered in this temperate zone, there was vast comfort in the 
vicinity of the North Pole. War conditions necessitated short 
rations and restriction of diet not only in Europe but in America, 
while upon the ice floes of the Beaufort Sea abundant food of a 
healthful character was available without serious difficulty to expe- 
rienced explorers. 

There seems to be much truth in Stefansson's observation that 
the cold of the Arctic deprives no one of either health or comfort 
if he understands conditions, realizes necessary precautions, and, 
making good use of his common sense, governs himself accordingly. 
But against the heat of tropical regions it is practically impossible 
to find any reasonable safeguard consistent with ordinary activity. 
Those accustomed to temperate zones would probably find life 
within the Arctic Circle more endurable and good health more 
assured than in the average lowlands at or near the equator. In 
certain tropical or semi-tropical climates, northern European races 
last for no more than three generations. There is no reason to 
believe that a like result would obtain in the far North. Although 
summer heat is sometimes quite oppressive within the Arctic Circle, 
its duration is comparatively short. 

Among many notable events of the Expedition one distinctive 
feature has especially impressed me. Before Stefansson, Dr. John 
Rae in 1848, and David Hanbury at the beginning of the present 
century, had lived off the country ; Nansen and Johansen had lived 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

for a winter on walrus after their sled journey across the sea ice 
was over; Peary and some others also depended on game to supply 
part of the food of their crews in winter quarters and to eke out 
supplies that could be hauled on sledges. Dr. R. M. Anderson and 
Stefansson, between 1908 and 1912, put Rae's methods to a thorough 
test and found them effective; they further proved that white men 
can easily master every art of the Eskimo that is useful for safe 
and comfortable existence in the Arctic. But the enterprise which 
began at Martin's Point on the 22d March, 1914, and ended 
(so far as this aspect is concerned) at Banks Land on the 25th of 
the following June, was of a character wholly different. The exam- 
ination of the Beaufort Sea west of Banks and Prince Patrick 
Islands had been declared by Sir Clements Markham* in his "Life 
of Admiral McClintock" to be "the great desideratum in Arctic 
geography." There were reasons for believing that there might be 
islands in the Beaufort Sea and there were reasons against this 
hypothesis. In Markham's opinion, knowledge of the Arctic regions 
would remain very incomplete until this area had been discovered 
and explored. Stefansson proposed to cross the Beaufort Sea on 
the ice, depending for food on the animal life which he believed to 
be existent in that sea. Against his belief all the forces of observa- 
tion and experience were arrayed. The explorers to whom I have 
alluded as "living off the country" wholly or in part, had done so 
on or near land where Eskimos were already living or where Eskimos 
thought they could live. All of them but Rae used Eskimo hunters 
to secure part or all of the game used. Stefansson was now strik- 
ing out into a region where no Eskimo had ever ventured and into 
which no Eskimo would accompany him unless he carried food, for 
they believed that no game could be found in that unknown waste. 
This very region has been referred to by Sir Clements Markham as 
"The Polar Ocean Without Life." The testimony and experience 
of Nansen and Peary were quite unfavorable to the hypothesis 
which Stefansson had formed. Eskimos and whalers were equally 
strong in the opinion that his venture must be disastrous in any 
event and fatal if persisted in. Against all this Stefansson placed 
reliance on deductions founded upon premises that he regarded as 
unassailable. 



* Markham, himself a distinguished polar explorer, was for many years 
President of the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain and was in 
intimate personal touch with every great polar explorer from Parry to Peary. 
He was therefore commonly considered a foremost authority on all polar 
matters. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

From the tropics to the Polar circles the amount of animal life 
per cubic unit of ocean water steadily increases. The great fisheries 
of the world are in the northern seas. Animal life is abundant not 
far from the verge of "The Polar Ocean Without Life." Stefansson 
could not be convinced that its abundance did not extend to that 
ocean. Against the belief and traditions of the Eskimo, against the 
universal experience and strong opinion of the most eminent Arctic 
explorers, against the advice of the whalers, Stefansson maintained 
his thesis and, risking not only his reputation but his life, com- 
mitted himself to the ice of the Beaufort Sea. Two companions 
accompanied him, and there would have been more if necessary, 
although no Eskimo could be induced to embark upon a venture 
that he regarded as suicidal. For ninety-six days the leader and 
his comrades journeyed and drifted. There were a few days of 
discouragement when the anticipated signs of seal life were not 
observable, but then came the sure and triumphant vindication of 
a theory founded upon accurate knowledge, keen observation and 
sure deduction. Another secret had been wrested from the northern 
ocean. Stefansson had proved that in the farthest Arctic the sea 
supplied food even more abundantly than the land. For more than 
a year the world knew nothing of his success, and it was generally 
believed (not by those who knew him best), that he had expiated 
failure by death. 

As a result of the Expedition many thousands of square miles 
have been added to the territory of Canada, much interesting 
material of great scientific value has been secured, unknown areas 
of vast extent have been explored and many illusions with respect 
to Arctic conditions have been dissipated. 

Stefansson's anticipations as to settlement and development in 
these northern regions are interesting. Who would venture to 
declare that they may not be justified as fully as his confidence 
in the Beaufort Sea? Men still living can remember that at first 
the great prairie provinces of Canada were regarded as unfit for 
human habitation. Once it was firmly held that railways could not 
be operated in Canada during the winter. Little more than a quarter 
of a century has elapsed since that theory prevailed with respect 
to street railways. At times tremendous forces of nature make 
the Arctic regions terrible and dangerous; but this is true of the 
ocean upon which hundreds of thousands spend their lives ; it is not 
less true of volcanic mountains within whose shadow great cities 
have been built and rebuilt. In regions that have been repeatedly 
desolated by earthquakes, man still makes his habitation. 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

As a result of the Expedition it is quite possible that the ovibos 
(or musk ox) may be domesticated. At all events, the attempt 
should be made. So far as I am aware, no large mammal has been 
domesticated by man within the historic period. 

In ''My Life With the Eskimo" and in this volume Stefansson 
has given us interesting and even fascinating pictures of Eskimo 
habits, beliefs and traditions before they came into contact with 
white races. Their social organization, their conception of life, 
their ideas respecting the phenomena of nature and their practical 
adaptability to a difficult environment were probably similar to 
those which prevailed among our very remote ancestors. They spoke 
several dialects of a remarkably complex language ; and in every- 
day life they used a vocabulary far exceeding that which we 
ordinarily employ. Through the accumulated experience of succes- 
sive generations they had acquired habits of life admirably suited 
to their surroundings. In many respects they were as children; in 
others, shrewdness itself. For them the age of magic still existed 
and without difficulty they accounted for the most miraculous or 
impossible events. Kindness, hospitality and many social virtues 
adorned their lives. But contact with the white races has been 
seldom beneficial to any such type. When a primeval civilization 
comes into contact with ours, the new wine is too strong for the old 
bottles. 

The results accomplished by this Expedition would have been 
impossible if Stefansson had been a man of less resource and 
courage. His commanding intellectual powers, remarkable faculty 
of observation, capacity for keen analysis of facts and conditions, 
splendid poise and balance, and immense physical strength and 
endurance made great results possible. Honors have been showered 
upon him by the representative societies of science; renowned polar 
explorers have paid him their warmest tribute; great universities 
have recognized by their highest degrees his contributions to 
scholarship and to science. The thanks and appreciation of the 
Canadian Government have been conveyed to him in a Minute of 
Council. But perhaps his greatest reward lies not in all this but 
in the love that has grown within him for this great friendly North 
which still calls him, the recollection of high endeavor successfully 
achieved, the loyalty and devotion of comrades still present in 
memory. 
Ottawa, October, 1921. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGK 

I The Four Stages in Polar Exploration 1 

II The North That Never Was 7 

III Good-By to "Civilization" for Five Years .... 27 

IV The Seeds of Tragedy 41 

V The Karluk in Fetters of Ice 49 

VI The Karluk Disappears 56 

VII New^s and Plans 66 

VIII The Journey to Collinson Point 75 

IX A Pause at Winter Quarters 91 

X We Meet Dr. Anderson 96 

XI MiDw^iNTER Travel and Preparation for Spring Work, 1914 99 

XII The Collinson Point Difficulties Ill 

XIII Shall We Dare to March North? 123 

XIV The Ice Journey Begins in Misfortune and Difficulty . 141 
XV The First Fifty Miles 153 

XVI We Enter Upon the Unknown Ocean 162 

XVII Colder Weather and Better Progress 170 

XVIII We Burn the Last Bridge Behind Us 187 

XIX We Secure Our First Seal 198 

XX Marooned On an Island of Ice 210 

XXI Summer Travel On Drifting Floes, 1914 220 

XXII Land After Ninety-Three Days on Drifting Ice . . . 226 

XXIII Records, Retrospects and Reflections 235 

XXIV Summer Life in Banks Island 242 

XXV Ole and I Go Hunting 250 

XXVI We Discover the Mary Sachs 266 

XXVII The Autumn Hunt in Banks Island, 1914 . . . .278 

XXVIII Midwinter Travel and Its Difficulties 285 

XXIX Spring Travel, 1915 293 

XXX Men and Bears as Seal Hunters 300 

XXXI We Complete the Mapping of Prince Patrick Island . . 312 

XXXII We Reach McClintock's Farthest 318 

XXXIII The Discovery of New Land 324 

XXXIV Exploring the New Land 331 

XXXV Melville Island and McClure Strait 351 

XXXVI Historic Mercy Bay 359 

XXXVII First Crossing of Banks Island, 1915 364 

XXXVIII We Are "Rescued" by Captain Louis Lane .... 374 

xxvii 



XXVlll 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XXXIX A Summer Visit to Heeschel Island 387 

XL Ice Navigation and Winter Quarters 397 

XLI Autumn in Victoria Island 40^ 

XLII A Visit to the Copper Eskimos 416 

XLIII Trouble With the Copper Eskimos 430 

XLIV Midwinter Travels and Plans, 1915-16 443 

XLV A Near Tragedy 450 

XLVI Winter Preparations 461 

XL VII Eskimo Tales from Winter Quarters 466 

XLVIII The North Coast of Banks Island 472 

XLIX WiLKiNS Leaves the Expedition, 1916 487 

L Into the Unknown Beyond the Ringnes Islands . . 509 

LI Discovery of Meighen Island 517 

LII Hassel Sound and King Christian Land .... 525 

LIII The Discovery of Lougheed Island 637 

LIV We Discover People and a Coal Mine 562 

LV We Find Bernier's Depot 571 

LVI The Fourth Midwinter, 1916-17 590 

LVII Arrival of Gonzales With News 598 

LVIII Spring Travel, 1917 608 

LIX In the Footsteps of Earlier Explorers . . . . . 623 

LX The Tragedy of Bernard and Thomsen 646 

LXI The Destruction of the Mary Sachs 655 

LXII The Adventures of the Autumn, 1917 663 

LXIII The Return After the Fifth Winter 673 

APPENDIX 



Drifting in the Beaufort Sea. By Storker T. Storkerson. Reprinted 

from MacLean's Magazine, March 15 and April 1, 1920 .... 689 

The Story of the Karluk, according to the account of Captain John R. 
Hadley, and the account of the rescue of the survivors by Burt M. 
McConnell 704 

The Region of Maximum Inaccessibility in the Arctic. By Vilhjalmur 
Stefansson. Reprinted from The Geographical Review, Vol. IX, Sep- 
tember, 1920, No. 9 731 

The Work of the Southern Section of the Expedition. A summary 
of the report of Dr. Rudolph M. Anderson in the Report of the 
Department of the Naval Service for the Fiscal Year ending March 
31, 1917 737 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Frontispiece 

On the Coppermine River in 1910 the Mosquitoes Bit Our Dogs Around 

the Eyes Till the Eyes Swelled 16 

There Are Hundreds of Species of Flowering Plants and Dozens of 
Species of Moths and Butterflies Found on the Most Northerly 
Islands in the World ^ 17 

A Meadow and Flowers of the Cotton Plant — Herschel Island, North 

Coast of Canada 
Captain Robert A. Bartlett"! „„ 

Dr. R. M. Anderson J 

Most Northerly Clubhouse in America — Log Cabin Club, Nome 
The Most Northerly Citizen of Uncle Sam for Forty Years — Barrow, 

Alaska. Charles Brower, Fred Hopson >- 27 

Most Northerly Theatre — Nome 
Most Northerly School, Post Office and Church, Barrow, Alaska 

Alaskan Reindeer Herd 36 

The Adaptability of the Skin Boat 37 

Music for an Outdoors Dance — Copper Eskimos ^ 



}■ 



I 



Labrets Worn by Mackenzie Eskimos 
Mackenzie Family "| 

Eskimo School Children at Barrow, J 

Winter Quarters at Collinson Point 92 

Wilkins Taking Movies 1 

Wilkins Showing Movies to Eskimos, Christmas, Collinson Point/ 

The Sledge Trails Seaward from Martin Point 1 -.,^ 

Cooking Outdoors with Seal Fat J 

Repairing a Broken Sled 143 

The Camp on the Ice Before the Gale 150 

Wilkins on the Shore Ice 151 

Constructing a Snov/house — First Four Steps 174 

Constructing a Snowhouse — Last Steps . . . 175 

Rigging the Sledboat 206 

Launching the Sledboat — Crossing a Lead — Landing 207 

Sealing Waters \ 

Fair Wind and Level Ice J 

Tent and Snow "Sastrugi" After a Blizzard 1 ^ 

The Lead That Stopped Us j 



XXX ILLUSTRATIONS 



A Tent Ring , 253 



PACING PAGE 

Broken Summer Ice Along the Coast/ 

The North Star Could Follow the Shore Water When a Larger Ship 

Could Not Move 259 

On Arrival at Kellett — Storker Storkerson, Ole Andreasen .... 268 

Building the Sodhouse at Cape Kellett 269 

Meat for the Winter's Food and Skins with Heads for Museum Specimens) 

Bringing Home a Load of Meat and Skins / 

Hauling Ashore the Emptied Sachs "|^ __^ 

Unloading at Kellett j 

The Dogs Sleep in Their Harness While We Make Camp^ 

A Snowhouse Will Support Almost Any Weight J * * * 

On a Day of No Shadows 315 

Herring Gull — Sabine's Gull — Yellow-Billed Loon— Lapland Longspur — 

Parry's Spermophile . 332 

A Young Owl on the Arctic Prairie 333' 

Lead Running Away from Land Showing Loose Ice Cake That Would 1 

Serve as Bridge or Ferry ^ 352 

sky Polar Coast — Summer 
Sandy Polar Coast — Summer 



I 353 



Rocky Polar Coast — Summer J 

Sandy Polar Coast — Summer 

Sandy Polar Coast — Spring — Showing Earth Heaped Up by Ice Pressure 

The Women Carry Anything Fragile Wrapped Up in Clothing ^ ^ 

Summer Travel with Pack Dogs. Copper Eskimos j' 

A Summer Cache, Copper Eskimos "1 ^^ 

A Summer Camp on the Prairie, Copper Eskimos 

The Harbor and Village, Herschel Island 

Eskimo Boats and the Alaska, Herschel Island^ 

Mamayauk, Half-white Girl, Cape Bathurst^ 

Copper Eskimo Girl j 

In Midwinter Annie Thomsen Played Outdoors All Day . . . . 396 

Guninana and Uttaktuak (Mrs. Lopez) 






} 



Andre Norem ' 

Copper Eskimo Bowmen 412 

Drying Meat and Sealskins I 

Eskimo Child Asleep in the Sun j 

Copper Eskimo Spearing Fish ^ 

Some of the Trout Are Larger Than This J 
Trying to Keep Cool on a Hot Arctic Day \ 
Typical Copper Eskimo Dog J 

Copper Eskimo Men » 436 

Copper Eskimo Women 437 

Star, Sachs and Alaska at Herschel Island 1 . ._ 

Star at Bernard Harbor f 



ILLUSTRATIONS xxxi 

FACING PAGE 

The Smoking Cliffs— Franklin Bay\ 

The North Star Had Sunk J ' 

It is Holiday Five Days Out of Seven Among the Copper Eskimos . . 468 

Tattooing — Copper Eskimos 469 

The Pressure of a Winter Gale Will Break Up the Heaviest Old Ice . . 514 

Ground Ice 515 

Our Camp on Meighen Island 1 _ 

Taking Possession of Meighen Island/ 

MacMillan's Record Found on Ellef Ringnes Island 529 

Sledging in Summer 564 

Copper Eskimo Girls and Women 565 

Musk Oxen Under Domestication — Bronx Park, New York .... 584 

A Polar Coast in Summer — Cape Parry 585 

Natkusiak and His Favorite Big Dog 608 

Wilkins Tried to Use a Mask Against the Cold\ 

Emiu Was Fond of Small, Fast Dogs J 

A Spring Evening in Polar Regions 636 

McClure's Record — Telling of the Discovery of the Northwest Passage 637 

Captain Bernard and His Sledgemaking Workshop 648 

The House at Bernard Harbor | 

The Camp at Armstrong Point/ 

Eskimo Family at Our Table — Collinson Point 1 

Point Barrow Family — Storkerson's Family / 

The Burberry Tent — Inner Cover "1 

Martin Kilian and the Monument He Built at Storkerson's Farthest y 697 

The Old Burberry Tent— Double Covers J 

This Lead Had Frozen Over 712 

Wilkins Taking Movies of Spring Whaling — Barrow, Alaska . . . 713 
Old Point Barrow Woman 
Half-grown Boy — Copper Eskimos _ 
Eskimo Men and Women Seem to Enjoy Mending Clothes and Imple- 
ments 745 



} ^^ 



MAPS 

'Tole of Inaccessibility" 8 

Field of Work, Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1914 140 

Field of Work, Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1915 292 

Field of Work, Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1916 450 

The Ringnes and Christian Island Group as Given in Sverdrup's "New 

Land," 1904 532 

The Ringnes and Christian Island Group with Corrections Made by 

the Canadian Arctic Expedition During 1915 and 1917 .... 534 

Field of Work, Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1917 594 

FieldofWork,Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1918 \ J , d fb k 

Key Map of Canadian Arctic Expedition / 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

CHAPTER I 

THE FOUR STAGES IN POLAR EXPLORATION 



This chapter and the next are concerned with fundamental 
aspects of polar exploration and of the polar regions. They are put 
here rather than in an appendix because a grasp of general principles 
should help to make clear many things that might otherwise seem 
inexplicable in the narrative which follows. 

Anyone who does not care to be told in advance what polar 
exploration and the polar regions are like should skip to the be- 
ginning of the narrative proper in Chapter III. 



WHEN attempt is made to arrange a large number of facts 
in diagrammatic order for the sake of easy comprehen- 
sion, exact truth frequently suffers in the interests of sim- 
plicity. This happens when we classify all polar exploration into 
four stages. Still, the view is more helpful than a conglomerate of 
facts and details where no philosophic scheme appears. 

There are many overlappings ; there is occasional retrogression; 
and in some instances one stage of exploration will survive parallel 
to another. But, speaking generally, there are four great suc- 
cessive stages. 

When in prehistoric times the Scandinavians spread northward 
in Europe and when the Eskimos and other Mongol-like people 
moved north in Asia and America to occupy the rich hunting grounds 
along the polar shores, this was not exploration in the true sense. 
It would not be exploration in the true sense even if the story were 
completely known, for these people came so gradually in contact with 
their new environment that the quest and adventure and heroic en- 
deavor which in our minds are inseparably associated with explora- 

1 



2 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

tion must then have been lacking. To the explorer, as we think 
of him, the North seems terrible. But certainly it can have had 
no terrors for people who gradually occupied the land because they 
preferred it to other lands farther south. It is true that some his- 
torians and even a few anthropologists have assumed that the 
northern people were crowded into the North by stronger races that 
pressed upon them from the south. But in modern times close ob- 
servers of the polar races have found no evidence that they are 
now or have recently been suffering any pressure from the south, and 
there is no real ground for the assumption that they ever suffered 
such pressure. The northern people do not abhor the North. There 
have been extensive migrations from northern Norway, but these 
have never been to the tropics ; or, if they have been, it has been for 
special reasons in restricted cases. The northern Norwegian, if he 
leaves his country, generally finds himself most at home and hap- 
piest in f3ome similar climate, such as Manitoba or Alaska, where 
the winter is as cold as or colder than he ever knew it at home. For 
one who does not stop to think, it might be a source of wonder that 
runic stones carved by Scandinavians have been found on the coast 
of Greenland north of Upernivik at latitudes the attainment of which 
brought glory to John Davis. But to the man who carved the stone 
and doubtless traveled far beyond it, the feat probably brought no 
local renown. His countrymen would find it no more remarkable 
that he could survive the cold of Greenland than a Zulu finds it 
that his neighbors can survive the heat of Africa. 

Of polar explorers as we know them, in distinction from the 
people who live contentedly in the North because they understand 
it, Davis and Hudson are typical. In the first period of polar 
exploration, men were universally in such fear of the North that 
they only made furtive incursions into it by ship in summer, re- 
turning south before autumn if they could. At that time it was 
believed that men of our race, softly nurtured in countries like Eng- 
land, either could not survive a polar winter or would find the hard- 
ships of doing so quite beyond any reward that could be expected. 

In the second stage, of which Edward Parry is typical, the polar 
winter was still dreadful, but a few men were found of such stern 
stuff that they were willing to brave its terrors. The battle with 
frost and storm at that time was a form of trench warfare. The 
hardy navigator penetrated as far north as might be by ship and 
then, figuratively speaking, dug himself in and waited for winter 
to pass, coming out of his hibernation in the spring. In that stage 
of exploration it was considered an achievement when Parry's men, 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 3 

dragging a cart, were able to cross Melville Island in the early 
summer, a journey of only a few score miles. Sir John Ross, who, 
fortunately for the advancement of polar technique, was thrown 
in close association with the Eskimos, borrowed some Eskimo ideas 
but used them with the ineptitude of the novice. He employed 
sledges and made some use of dogs. It seems extraordinary that no 
explorer thought of going directly to the Eskimos and borrowing 
their system of life and travel in toto ; that instead of learning native 
methods they found it necessary to discover for themselves the 
same principles of living and traveling which the Eskimos had 
discovered centuries before. Sir Leopold McClintock made notable 
advances over the explorers who had preceded him. Had he matched 
his ability not with his fellow explorers but with the Eskimos, 
his strides forward would have been incomparably more rapid. 
When McClintock commenced his work, a journey of a hundred 
miles in April or May was considered remarkable and was performed 
only at the cost of much suffering and hard labor, while at the end 
of his service, although it covered less than twenty years, journeys 
of a thousand miles were made without any greater strain upon 
health or risk to life than had been the case with the hundred- 
mile journeys. 

Yet the fear of the winter was still upon them all. Even Mc- 
Clintock did not commence his great journey from Melville to 
Prince Patrick Island until April. Although Nares as a lieutenant 
had the benefit of service with McClintock and Mecham, the ex- 
pedition which he commanded in 1878 was no advance but actually 
a relapse into pre-McClintock methods. His statement that a com- 
mander should be censured who requires his men to travel in the 
Arctic before the month of April shows that not only in technique 
but in mental attitude towards the North he had failed to make 
any advance beyond McClintock. 

Then comes the third stage of polar exploration, of which Peary 
is typical, a greater step forward, it seems to me, than either of 
the preceding. The significance of this step can be made clear 
especially to those not personally familiar with arctic conditions 
by a truthful analogy. It is a matter of conjecture how the first 
man navigated a raft and how the first primitive sailor handled his 
bark. But, however it was and whenever it was, we can take it for 
granted that the earliest traveler by water paddled fearfully from 
bay to haven along prehistoric coasts, dreading nothing so much 
as the gales which could convert the placid surface of the waters 
he knew how to deal with into tumultuous seas, dangerous and even 



4 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

fatal to his craft and himself. In that time no one thought of the 
wind as anything but hostile to the mariner. But the time came 
with the greater development of knowledge when the wind ceased 
to be hostile and became a friend. Then there was advance after 
advance until the sailor began to dread the calms which his fore- 
runners had courted, and to pray for the strong breezes that had 
been to his ancestors things to dread. Finally, the time came when 
the winds carried clipper ships across the widest oceans, and it 
became almost inconceivable to the world how commerce could 
be carried forward without the aid of winds. 

As the primitive sailor feared the storm so the early arctic ex- 
plorer dreaded the winter. This dread gradually became less until 
there appeared the men who turned winter into a friend as the 
sailors had done with the gale. The leader among these was Peary, 
who saw that the cold should not be avoided but courted, and that 
the most successful journeys could be made in the winter, be- 
ginning in January or February, and should come to an end on any 
properly managed expedition by April, before the first thaw. A 
calm used to be ideal for paddling, and ideal for that it remains to 
this day, but paddling is not now a serious occupation. To Peary 
at work on the polar ice the warmth of summer was as welcome as 
a calm to Nelson at the hour of battle. 

In the first stage of exploration the polar winter was considered 
so dreadful that it could not be endured ; in the second stage it was 
dreadful, though it could and had to be endured, and no work could 
be done till it was nearly over; in the third stage it was not only 
neither dreadful nor difficult to endure, but was the season when 
work could be done most easily, and was therefore preferable to 
summer. Apparently the limit of progress had been attained in 
this direction. But just as steam altered navigation and brought 
back the time when a calm is more agreeable and valuable than 
a strong breeze, so there was possible in arctic exploration an ad- 
vance which would again bring summer into a degree of favor, 
although it did not discard use of the winter cold as steam naviga- 
tion has discarded use of the wind. 

Explorers of the Peary type might no longer dread the winter, 
but there was another arctic condition which to them was still full 
of menace. Though traveling could be done and had to be done 
in winter, it was laborious, fraught with hardships, and had to be 
limited because of the difficulty of transporting enough food for 
men and dogs. It was universally conceived that an ice-covered 
arctic sea could supply neither suitable food nor suitable fuel in 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 5 

adequate quantity for the support of traveling parties. For cen- 
turies Eskimos had been known to subsist on the shores of the 
polar sea, but it was believed that this was existing rather than 
living, and that the people were different, although enough like 
us to be as wretched as we believed we would have been under 
arctic temperature, arctic night, scarce and undesirable food, and 
other difficult living conditions. Now and then a traveler had 
come forward with reverse testimony that the Eskimos were healthy 
and happy, and that life by their method was as comfortable in the 
Arctic when you once become used to it as the life of a primitive 
tropical people was when you become used to that. 

The Eskimos themselves considered it impossible to make a 
living by their method anywhere except on land or on the ocean 
near land. The explorers all fell in with this view and so did 
geographers and others who theorized about it. Sir Clements 
Markham, himself an arctic explorer and over a long lifetime in 
close touch with polar progress, toward the end of his career in his 
''Life of Sir Leopold McClintock," speaks of "the polar ocean with- 
out life" (page 166), and at various times in other places referred 
to the "fact" that, while people could subsist on certain arctic 
lands, subsistence on the high sea was not possible. Similarly Nan- 
sen on his great journey over the ice after leaving the Fram killed 
his dogs one by one, feeding the dead to the living, because he did 
not conceive it possible to secure food for them. Even Peary, 
though he did not usually deliberately plan to kill his dogs, says 
in his last book, "The North Pole," that he expected to drive them 
so hard and feed them so little that sixty per cent, of them would 
die on the journey. 

But it is obvious that were this opinion of the Eskimos and 
the explorers wrong, then a further advance in the method of polar 
exploration was still possible, and without the aid of new mechanical 
invention. The men of early time had shown that travel on the 
ice is possible in summer, although difficult and disagreeable. The 
men of the Peary stage had shown that traveling on the sea ice 
in winter is far easier and more agreeable than traveling in sum- 
mer and that the only limitation to the length of journey was 
through the difficulty of transporting enough food. Now if it could 
be demonstrated that food suitable to sustain indefinitely both 
men and dogs could be secured anywhere on the polar sea, then 
obviously journeys over the ice would cease to be limited either in 
time or distance. Any part of the polar sea would then become 
accessible to whoever was willing to undergo the supposed hard- 



6 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ships of living on meat exclusively, using nothing but blubber for 
fuel, and remaining separated from other human beings than his 
own traveling companions for a period of years. 

To demonstrate the feasibility of this and thereby to bring in 
the fourth stage of polar exploration, was the main task of our 
expedition. From my point of view, at least, any discoveries which 
might be made through the application of this method were second- 
ary to the establishment of the method itself. For, with the method 
once established, anyone could go out and make the discoveries. 
When the world was once known to be round, there was no difficulty 
in finding many navigators to sail around it. When the polar re- 
gions are once understood to be friendly and fruitful, men will 
quickly and easily penetrate their deepest recesses. 

I am one of those who, knowing both Peary and his methods, never had any 
doubt that he reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. I have, however, 
been sometimes impatient of discussion as to whether he reached it or not. 
The all-important consideration is that he developed a method by which 
anyone could reach the Pole or any other point no farther removed from 
the nearest land than five or six hundred miles, which he thought (and I 
agree) was about the limit as to distance of the dog-sledge system of trans- 
portation. 

If you once concede that the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane and 
inaugurated the era of air navigation which is now revolutionizing our 
civilization, both in peace and in war, then it becomes of little interest 
whether Orville Wright can fly as high or as far or steer an aeroplane as 
successfully as some one else. Those are accomplishments by no means 
small, but not in a class with the pioneer work that made all the rest 
possible. When Peary was able to reach the Pole he laid down a system 
by which anyone of good health, sound judgment and a reasonable appren- 
ticeship in polar work can reach it, starting from the same base on the north 
coast of Grant Land. With that point understood, any attempted dis- 
paragement of Peary by suggesting that he was himself too old to get to 
the Pole (a foolish suggestion, anyway) would be like trying to cast slurs 
on Watt or Stephenson by pointing out that neither of them drove a loco- 
motive at a hundred miles per hour. 



CHAPTER II 

THE NORTH THAT NEVER WAS 

THE salient characteristics of the arctic regions are only too 
well known. With minor modifications, they are as fol- 
lows: The Arctic is a roughly circular or exactly circular 
area ''at the top of the world," with the Pole for a center. The 
Pole is the point on the northern hemisphere most difficult of all 
places to get to. Formerly explorers went north to find a short 
route from Europe to China or in search of gold; but later they 
strove and still are striving for the Pole itself. The Northwest 
Passage was found by the Franklin Expedition in the middle of 
the nineteenth century (some think it was found by Amundsen in 
1905) , and the Pole was attained by Peary in 1909. The Northwest 
Passage has proved of no immediate commercial value and will 
therefore forever remain worthless. The Pole has been attained, 
and the supreme achievement of the Arctic thus made a finality. 

Why should any one want to explore the Arctic further? The 
land up there is all covered with eternal ice; there is everlasting 
winter with intense cold; and the corollary of the everlastingness 
of the winter is the absence of summer and the lack of vegetation. 
The country, whether land or sea, is a lifeless waste of eternal 
silence. The stars look down with a cruel glitter, and the depress- 
ing effect of the winter darkness upon the spirit of man is heavy 
beyond words. On the fringes of this desolation live the Eskimos, 
the filthiest and most benighted people on earth, pushed there by 
more powerful nations farther south, and eking out a miserable 
existence amidst hardship. 

This, with individual modifications, is the current picture of the 
Arctic, and this is substantially what we have to unlearn before we 
can read in a true light any story of arctic exploration. 

According to their varied temperaments, those who hold such 
views of the North are forced to one or another semi-irrational ex- 
planation of why explorers still go there. Some think it is because 
of an insatiable desire, mysteriously implanted in our race, to throw 
ourselves against obstacles, to brave dangers and suffer heroic 

7 



8 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

deaths— a sort of human counterpart of the impulse which leads 
the lemming to march in thousands into the ocean to be drowned. 
Other conceptions vary upward and upward, until we come to the 
noble view that the explorer is the scientist urged by a thirst for 
knowledge, who struggles on through the arctic night with the same 
spirit that keeps the astronomer at his telescope, neither of them 
thinking of material profit or necessarily of glory or even of the 
approbation of his fellows. 

There is much of the adventurer in some explorers and much 
of the scientist in others ; in a few the qualities are happily blended. 
But in order to understand the Arctic explorer and his work we 
must understand the Arctic as it really is. It might seem that the 
easiest way to do this would be to learn more about it. A far 
easier way is to forget what we think we already know. 

The Arctic as pictured in the first two paragraphs of this chapter 
and in the minds of most of our contemporaries, does not exist. It 
may be a pity to destroy the illusion, for the world is getting daily 
poorer in romance. Elves and fairies no longer dance in the woods, 
and it appears a sort of vandalism to destroy the glamorous and 
heroic North by too intimate knowledge, as the Greeks drove their 
gods off Olympus through the perverse scaling of the mountain to 
its top. 

Our first close look at the Arctic shows us that our central 
"fact," the preeminent inaccessibility of the Pole, is not a fact at 
all. The portion difficult of access is not circular with the Pole at 
its center, but of a highly irregular shape with the Pole lying well 
towards one of the edges. The region in the north difficult of access 
is an ocean more or less covered with ice. The inaccessibility of any 
part of this area is due to the fact that there is too much ice for 
ships to sail as they sail on the Atlantic, and not enough for men 
to walk safely and easily as they walk on land. There is no single 
huge expanse of level ice: there are instead innumerable floes or 
cakes of ice. These are pressed against each other under the stress 
of wind and current, their edges crumble under the terrific strain, 
and ice pressure ridges are formed resembling mountain ranges in 
contour, though seldom more than fifty or sixty feet in height. If 
the floes are extensive they break up under heavy pressure not only 
along their edges but at various points within the general field, 
buckling till they crack and forming new floe edges with new pres- 
sure ridges. Then when the strains slacken or become unequal the 
floes, instead of hugging each other, spread apart with water lanes 
between. This happens even in midwinter with the temperature at 



t_ ARCTIC OCEAN 

SHOWING THE 
POLE OF RELATIVE INACCESSIBILnT 



400 IOO(ttMia«M 




THE GEOGR. REVIEW. Sept. 1920 



The entire area outside of the heavy solid line may be called the "Zone 
of Approach by Ship"; the area within it the ''Zone of Man-and-Dog 
Travel." The stippled portion of the latter is the "Zone of Comparative 
Inaccessibility." The distance between the isochronic lines is five days 
dog-sledge travel, or 60 miles. Incidentally the map shows the superiority 
of Peary's position of 1908 over all others on land as a base for a dash 
aimed at the point of latitude 90° N. It is also favorably situated for an 
attack on the "Pole of Inaccessibility," which is only 200 miles farther away 
from Peary's base than the North Pole. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 9 

its lowest. There is never a time when one can travel on foot or 
by dog sledge over the ice without meeting this handicap of open 
water, and open water is more serious than the deepest masses of 
the softest snow or the most craggy and slippery ice ridges. 

All this being so, the North Pole might still be at the center 
of this floating conglomeration of ice. So it would were it not 
for a fundamqntal difference between the Atlantic and the Pacific 
oceans. In each of these there is a great stream of warm water 
rushing northward. In the Atlantic we call it the Gulf Stream and 
in the Pacific we speak of the Japan Current. The two oceans 
differ fundamentally, however, in that, no matter how hard it tries, 
the Japan Current is unable to penetrate to the polar sea in its 
quarter. It is fenced out by the chain of the Aleutian Islands and 
by Bering Strait, where Alaska and Siberia almost lock horns. 
The Strait is thirty-six miles across, scarcely wider than the chan- 
nel between Great Britain and France, and besides being narrow 
and shallow it has two islands in the middle. The Japan Current, 
therefore, instead of reaching the Alaskan arctic with its warmth, 
spends its heat upon the air and water of the North Pacific, with 
only a little and practically imperceptible amount of slightly warmed 
water finding its way to the north coast of Alaska. 

In the Atlantic the condition is different. The waters warmed 
by the Gulf Stream spread northward through the wide and deep 
gap between Norway and Greenland, splitting on Iceland with 
such effect that although Iceland is arctic in name and subarctic in 
latitude it is temperate in weather. The climate of Iceland at sea 
level does not differ materially from that of Scotland. There are 
high mountains and these are ice-capped. It is a commonplace of 
geology that the Scotch mountains would also be ice-capped were 
they as high as those of Iceland. At sea level in Iceland the temper- 
ature in some winters never falls to zero Fahrenheit, and fifteen 
below is more often experienced in the region near New York City 
than in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. For the last ten years 
the mean temperature of January in Reykjavik has been thirty- 
three degrees above zero, or about that of Milan in Italy. Nor does 
the Gulf Stream stop at Iceland. Its waters creep north into the 
polar ocean and melt away the ice that otherwise would be there, 
so that the Scotch whalers in an ordinary season can sail from six 
to seven hundred miles closer to the Pole on the Atlantic side than 
the American whalers on the Pacific side. 

There is another place where a ship can steam about as close 
to the Pole as it can through the breach made by the Gulf Stream. 



10 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

This is the passage which Peary has called the "American route to 
the Pole," the narrow series of straits between Greenland and 
Ellesmere Land. There is frequently a current running south 
through this strait. The huge masses of ice from the polar ocean 
to the north would like to accompany this current south into the 
strait, but in their eagerness they crowd each other in its northern 
mouth, like a mob of people jammed in the narrow exit of a build- 
ing. While the ice cakes on the surface are jammed and only some 
fragments get through, the water underneath them flows south 
freely, so that in many seasons those straits are blue water in late 
summer, though the latitude is higher than that which ships can 
navigate anywhere else. It was through this circumstance that 
Peary was able to get a ship up the norih coast of Grant Land, 
less than five hundred miles from the Pole. 

It is a commonplace of arctic lore and indeed self-evident that 
so long as sledges hauled by dogs, men or motors are used for 
arctic exploration, that point will be most difficult to reach which 
is farthest away from the ultimate goal of a ship where the sledge 
traveling has to begin. If this ultimate ship base is 450 miles from 
the Pole in Grant Land, or Franz Josef Land, about 800 miles at 
Cape Chelyuskin on the north tip of Siberia, and over 1,100 miles 
near Point Barrow on the north tip of Alaska, it becomes evident 
that the point in the Arctic hardest to get at, which we may call the 
"Pole of Inaccessibility," by no means coincides with the North 
Pole but lies about four hundred miles away from it in the direction 
towards Alaska. This coincided roughly with the center of the 
unexplored area in the polar regions when we sailed north, an area 
of over a million square miles then, and still to be reckoned as at 
least seven hundred thousand square miles. The region is unex- 
plored, partly through its inherent inaccessibility, but partly also 
for two other reasons. 

The first of these reasons is that the civilization of our time has 
developed on the two shores of the Atlantic, and that the sailors 
of this ocean have been the chief explorers of the North. It was 
natural they should attack the problem along the frontier nearest 
home, and that is one reason why knowledge has advanced into the 
inaccessible area more rapidly from the Atlantic than from the 
Pacific side. Incidentally, those who went north with a desire to 
find a way from their homes to the Indies naturally struck into 
the unexplored area on a promising route to attain this purpose, 
which again was the frontier nearest home. 

But a second reason has been the glamour of the search for the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 11 

Pole. Even when you realize that it is comparatively easy of 
access, it is still ninety degrees away from the equator, and unique. 
The sentiment surrounding the idea of uniqueness might have been 
weakened had people realized that as a known mathematical point 
the North Pole was obliged to be comparatively accessible. But 
that bit of knowledge has succeeded in maintaining itself as the 
exclusive property of a few specialists, and the world in general 
has imagined the North Pole to be to the Arctic what the mountain 
top is to the mountain. That analogy is true when applied to the 
Pole of Inaccessibility but not when applied to the geographic 
North Pole. But false views when strongly held are as powerful in 
their effect upon human conduct as any true views can be, and this 
has been another reason why men brought up on the shores of the At- 
lantic have striven into the polar area with the latitude of 90° North 
as their goal, but with the practical result of progressively uncov- 
ering vast areas that lay between. 

In the process of removing the imaginary Arctic from our minds, 
we come to the proposition that all land in the far north is covered 
with eternal ice. 

Permanent ice on land is another name for a glacier. When we 
stop to think of it, glaciers exist in any part of the world with the 
proper combination of high altitude and heavy precipitation. 
Mount Kenia in Africa, the top of which is considered to be about 
seven miles from the equator, has "eternal ice" upon it, a glacier 
of considerable area. There are known to be huge glaciers in sub- 
tropical Asia and lesser ones in South America. They are eternal 
on the mountain-tops of Mexico; in California they come a 
little nearer sea level, as they do in Switzerland. They come lower 
yet in the State of Washington, not primarily because it is farther 
no/th but chiefly because of the heavier precipitation. British 
Columbia is the warmest province in all Canada, and yet it contains 
three-quarters of all the glaciers of continental Canada, again be- 
cause of the heavy precipitation. The south coast of Alaska has 
a climate not very different from that of British Columbia or of 
Scotland, though somewhat more rainy than Scotland. A compara- 
tively warm country, southern Alaska contains huge glacfers which 
in some instances reach to the ocean and break off, forming icebergs 
that float away to be rapidly melted by the warm waters of the 
Pacific. But if you travel seven or eight hundred miles overland 
from the glacier-infested south coast northward you come to the 
prairies bordering the Alaskan north coast. Here is a comparatively 
cold climate; but on the great triangular coastal plain of fifty 



12 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

thousand square miles there are no mountains, consequently no gla- 
ciers. Geologists tell us that a few millenniums ago there was a 
sheet of ice covering England in Europe and New England in 
America. At that time what are now the cities of New York and 
London were covered by an ice sheet, but there was no ice sheet 
covering the low plains of northern Alaska, and there never has 
been since.* The explanation is that northern Alaska is low, 
flat land with a precipitation so light that the snow which falls in 
winter is all thawed away in the spring. 

These being the facts, it seems strange at first that people should 
so universally have the idea that the lands of the far north are 
covered with glaciers. The explanation is ^simple. There is one 
land in the north that is covered with glaciers and from it all the 
rest of the north has been pictured by analogy. Greenland is a 
mass of high mountains in a region of precipitation so heavy that 
the heat of summer does not suffice to thaw all the accumulated 
snows of winter, so they change into glacier ice that flows down the 
valleys into the sea and breaks off into the icebergs that are the 
delight and dread of the transatlantic tourist. We thus have in 
fact as well as in the hymn-book ''Greenland's icy mountains." 
And Greenland is close to the big modern centers of population. 
In the days before Standard Oil became the light of the world the 
whale and seal fisheries were profitable, and men from nearly every 
seaboard town were engaged in them. They brought home stories 
of the ice of Greenland and some of them wrote books about it. 
In more recent years about every other owner of a yacht has more 
or less timorously approached Greenland, near enough at least to 
see the ice and to talk and write about it. And because Greenland 
has been truthfully described as a land mainly ice-covered, we have 
thoughtlessly assumed that all northern lands are similarly ice- 
covered. Some glaciers, although much smaller, exist in Franz 
Josef Land and in Spitsbergen, and there are glaciers of consider- 
able size in Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Islands, and lesser ones in 
Baffin Island. But when you get west of that, the great archipelago 
that stretches northward from Canada towards the Pole is quite 
free of them and so is all the Canadian mainland along the polar 
sea and southward to the arctic circle and beyond, except for some 
high valleys and peaks in the Rockies. 

But even after making it clear that Greenland is a peculiar 
island and the only one having an ice cap, and after explaining 

*See "Canmng River Region of Northern Alaska," by Ernest de Koven 
Leffingwell, published by the U. S. Geological Survey, 1919. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 13 

further that the glaciers of Baffin Island are comparable in size 
to the glaciers of British Columbia, we may meet the objection, 
"But surely the land is covered with snow all summer." This, of 
course, cannot be the case. If it were, a glacier would gradually 
develop. As a matter of fact, the snowfall in the Canadian arctic 
islands and on the north coast of Canada and Alaska is less than 
half and in many places less than quarter of what it is, for instance, 
in Montreal or Petrograd or the hills back of Christiania. It is 
less than in Chicago, Warsaw, northeast Germany or the High- 
lands of Scotland. The amount is difficult to estimate exactly for 
the snow is so frequently disturbed by the wind, but in all probabil- 
ity the typical arctic snowfall would not, if translated into water, 
amount to more than four or at the most six inches per year, where 
the snowfall in certain inhabited portions of Europe and America 
amounts to ten times that much. Sverdrup estimates the total 
annual snowfall of Ellesmere Island, the most northerly island yet 
found in the world, at about one-tenth of the weather bureau esti- 
mate for the annual snowfall of St. Louis, Missouri. Most of what 
little snow falls in the far North is soon swept by the wind into 
gullies and into the lee of hills, so that from seventy-five to ninety 
per cent, of the surface of arctic land is comparatively free from 
snow at all seasons. What we mean by "comparatively free" is 
that a pebble the size of a plum lying on the ground would have 
more than an even chance of being partly visible above the snow. 

Closely allied to the idea that all land in the north is covered 
with eternal ice and snow is the one that the climate is an ever- 
lasting winter of intense cold. Whether this is true is largely a 
matter of definition. A person brought up in Manitoba or Mon- 
tana would be inclined to think that there is no winter in the south 
of England, while a native of Sicily or India might consider the 
climate of England all winter. We might begin by defining sum- 
mer, and defining it as that season when ponds are unfrozen and 
the small rivers flow ice-free to the sea. This season may be five 
months long, as it is on the arctic circle north of Great Bear Lake in 
Canada; four months, as in Victoria Island; three months, as in 
Melville Island; or even shorter, as in the islands discovered by 
us to the north. But there is always a summer, the presence of birds, 
with the hum of bees and the buzz of insects more unpleasant and 
with green grass and flowers. 

The question of whether the arctic winter is intensely cold is 
also a matter of definition. Temperature is a field where every- 
thing is comparative, even though you concede to the thermometric 



14 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

scale an absolute value. The Canadian government has for more 
than twenty years maintained a weather observatory at Herschel 
Island on the north coast of Canada, about two hundred miles 
beyond the arctic circle, and during that time the lowest tempera- 
ture recorded has been 54° below zero Fahrenheit. This may seem 
cold, and indeed is cold in comparison with Zululand or England. 
But it is not cold when compared with certain permanently inhabited 
countries. Traveling south from Herschel Island less than two 
hundred miles you come to Fort Macpherson, for a long time the 
most northerly trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company, and 
here the temperature some winters drops as low as 68° below zero. 
This is because, although going south, you are getting away from 
the moderating effect of the huge amount of unfrozen and compara- 
tively warm water that underlies the ice of the polar sea and that 
forms a great radiator which prevents the temperature from drop- 
ping exceedingly low. Traveling again south from Fort Macpherson 
several hundred miles you come to the city of Dawson, the capital 
of the Yukon Territory. This is a great mining center, although 
it no longer has a population of forty thousand people as in the 
days of its highest prosperity. Dawson is an ordinary town with 
buildings steam-heated and electrically lighted, and with all the 
ordinary activities of a place of four or five thousand population. 
There are shops where people buy and sell as they do in other 
climes, there are churches with people going to church (a few), 
and there are little children toddling to school, all without any 
greater apparent discomfort, though the temperature sometimes 
drops to 65° below zero, than you find in France or in North Caro- 
lina where the temperature goes a little below freezing. More 
hardship is felt, more complaint expressed, and there is more inter- 
ference with the ordinary routine of life when snow falls in Paris 
than when Dawson is at its coldest. 

As you go south along the Rocky Mountains from Dawson you 
get farther from the great temperature equalizer, the ocean, as you 
get nearer the equator. A thousand miles south, in northern Mon- 
tana, the United States Weather Bureau gives the same minimum 
figure for winter cold near Havre that the Canadian Weather 
Bureau does near Dawson — 68° below zero. We know from ob- 
servation it is never colder than 54° below zero on the north coast 
of North America at sea level: we know theoretically that it can- 
not ever get much colder than 60° below at the North Pole which 
lies in a deep ocean. It is, then, at Havre, Montana, fourteen de- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 15 

grees colder than on the north coast of North America and ten 
degrees colder than at the North Pole. Near the great city of Win- 
nipeg in Manitoba the weather bureau shows lower temperatures 
than for the north coast of Canada. So if you happen to be living 
in northern Montana or southern Manitoba and want to go polar 
exploring, it would seem you might leave behind a few clothes. I 
once said substantially this in a lecture in Kalispell, Montana, 
whereupon some one in the audience took me to task for running 
down Montana. But the merits of Montana are securely estab- 
lished, I told him. A friend of mine has a cattle ranch near Havre 
where steers do well running out all winter. I was not, therefore, 
running down Montana by the comparison but praising the North 
Pole. 

The cold pole of the northern hemisphere, far from coinciding 
with 'the North Pole, is believed to be on the continent of Asia north 
of Irkutsk, where the temperature is said occasionally to fall to 
90° below zero. And that is a settled country, the inhabitants of 
which probably do not complain any more about the climate than 
do those of London or New York. 

A corollary to everlasting cold in the north is absence of summer 
heat. It is not easy to say which one of the common notions about 
the North is the least true, but it is hard to see how any idea can be 
more wrong than this one. 

I spent the summer of 1910 from fifty to seventy-five miles 
north of the arctic circle in Canada, northeast of Great Bear Lake, 
and for six weeks the temperature rose to the vicinity of 90° in 
the shade nearly every day. Neither did it fall low at night, for 
in that region the sun does not set and there is no respite through 
the cooling darkness. The sun beat down on us from a cloudless 
sky as it continued its monotonous circling, and all of my party 
agreed we had never in our experience suffered as much from cold 
as we suffered from heat that summer. The distress was augmented 
by the unbelievable numbers of pests of the insect world — mos- 
quitoes, sandflies, horseflies, and so on. No one who has not 
been in the Arctic, or near it, has any idea what mosquitoes may 
be like. I Rave found it wise not to even try to explain, for although 
people are willing to believe any horror of the North if it centers 
around cold and ice, they lose faith in your responsibility if you 
try to tell them the truth about the northern mosquito.* 

Every summer the United States Weather Bureau reports tem- 

* See "The Arctic Prairies," by Ernest Thompson Seton, p. 63. 



16 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

perature above 90° in the shade at Fort Yukon, in Alaska, four 
miles north of the arctic circle. The maximum recorded there so 
far is 100° in the shade. 

Still following the typical view of the far north we come to 
the question of vegetation. Even those who would make the off- 
hand statement that the land is covered with eternal ice and snow 
would, if you pressed them, admit that they had heard of vegeta- 
tion in the North. You would, however, find that in their minds 
the idea of vegetation was coupled with such adjectives as '^humble," 
''stunted," "clinging," and more specifically they would be of 
opinion that what vegetation there is must be mosses and lichens. 
Should you succeed in reminding them that they have read or heard 
of arctic flowers, they would think of these as an exception. 

Yet Sir Clements Markham in his appendix to the ''Life of 
Admiral McClintock," points out that he knows of the existence 
of 762 species of arctic flowering plants and only 332 species of 
mosses, 250 of lichens and 28 of ferns. Similarly Dr. Elmer Ek- 
blaw, the American botanist, gathered over 120 different species 
of flowering plants in one vicinity six or seven hundred miles north 
of the arctic circle. And these are not flowering plants that are 
strange to us, but they include such common forms as saxifrage, 
poppy, Alpine chickweed, bluegrass, heather, mountain avens, 
sedge, arnica, cat's-paw, reed-bent grass, blue-bell, sixteen species 
of cress, dandelion, timothy, scouring rushes, ferns and edible mush- 
rooms. 

Even while we realize that the number of species of flowering 
plants in the Arctic is far greater than the non-flowering, we might 
still believe that the non-flowering are comparatively luxuriant 
and conspicuous and the flowering plants shrinking and rare. In 
general this is the opposite of the truth. In special cases it may 
be that, through scarcity or absence of soil, lichens and mosses 
prevail locally, for the peculiarity of lichens especially is that they 
manage to live even on the surface of naked rocks. But whenever 
soil is abundant, and this is as likely to be the case in the Arctic 
as elsewhere, the prevailing vegetation is grasses, sedges and the 
like; and in some places, no matter how far north, this kind of 
vegetation completely obscures the non-flowering. 

"Barren Ground" is a libelous name by which the open land of 
the north is commonly described. This name is better adapted for 
creating the impression that those who travel in the North are in- 
trepid adventurers than it is for conveying to the reader a true pic- 
ture of the country. If we want to be near the truth we should 




W 

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o a 

02 < 



05 Q 

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o 





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1. There are hundreds of species of flowering plants and dozens of species 

of moths and butterflies found on the most northerly islands 
in the world, 

2. A meadow and flowers of the cotton plant — Herschel Island, North 

Coast of Canada. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 17 

rather follow Ernest Thompson Seton who is so impressed with 
the grasslands of the North that he makes the expression "The 
Arctic Prairies" the title of his book describing a journey north. 
Mecham, one of the most remarkable of arctic travelers and the 
original explorer of southwestern Melville Island and southern 
Prince Patrick Island, says in his report, published in the Parlia- 
mentary Blue Books of Great Britain for the year 1855, that many 
of the portions of Melville Island which did not happen to be rocky 
reminded him of English meadows. This was five hundred miles 
north of the arctic circle and this is the case no matter how far 
north you go. Northern Greenland is not only the most northerly 
land so far discovered but the refrigerating effect of the ice in the 
sea is there greatly accentuated by the chill from the inland ice- 
cap. Here, descending from the inland ice to the coast, Peary 
found musk oxen grazing in green and flowered meadows among 
the song of birds and the hum of bees. That the musk ox is a 
grass-eating animal and not a lichen-eater, and is the most northerly 
land animal known, sharing that distinction equally with the cari- 
bou, shows that grass must be abundant on the most northerly lands. 

We now come to the remarkable adjective "lifeless," so fre- 
quently applied to the North. What has been already said is an 
indirect comment on this, but we may develop it further. Look 
in any work of oceanography, and you will find the statement that 
in the ocean the amount of animal life per cubic unit of volume 
does not decrease as you go north from the equator. To this it is 
of course possible to reply, "Oh, yes, but when we call the arctic 
lifeless we are not thinking of the depths of the sea but of the sur- 
face of the land." If that is the position taken, it differs diamet- 
rically from that of such a polar authority, as, for instance, Sir 
Clements Markham, a former president of the Royal Geographical 
Society of Great Britain, who on page 166 of his "Life of Admiral 
McClintock" speaks of the "polar ocean without life" in contradis- 
tinction to the polar islands, which he recognized to be well sup- 
plied with it. 

The arctic grasslands have caribou in h^rds of tens of thou- 
sands and sometimes hundreds of thousands to a single band, with 
lesser numbers of musk oxen here and there. Wolves that feed 
on the caribou go singly and in packs of ten or less, and their 
aggregate numbers on the arctic prairies of the two hemispheres 
must be well in the tens of thousands. There are the polar foxes, 
both white and blue, that feed in summer on the unbelievable 
swarms of lemmings that also form the food of hundreds of thou- 



18 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

sands of owls and hawks and gulls. There are the goose and brant 
and swan and crane and loon and various species of ducks. The 
ground at the moulting season in some islands such as Banks Island, 
three or four hundred miles north of the arctic circle, is literally 
white with millions of wavy geese and equally white with their 
moulted feathers a little later in the season when the birds are 
gone. When you add to this picture the bumblebees, blue-bottle 
flies and abundant insect life of which the clouds of mosquitoes form 
the most impressive and least tolerable part, you get a picture of 
a country that in summer certainly is not without life. 

"But then," it may be said, '^there comes the winter when the 
insects live only as eggs and larvae containing the potential life for 
the coming year, and when all land animals migrate south." It 
is true that this opinion can be supported by direct quotations from 
explorers, especially the early ones. It seemed so eminently reason- 
able to men brought up in England that any animal with legs to 
walk on would move south in winter, that they translated this be- 
lief into a statement of fact and asserted that both the caribou 
and the musk ox leave such islands as Melville in the fall to come 
again in the spring. If this were so, surely my companions and I 
could not have lived on the meat of land animals which we killed 
every month of the year as far north as 76° and even 80° N. Lati- 
tude. Musk oxen never leave any island on which they are born, 
for there is no evidence that they go out on the sea ice at all. 
Caribou do move about from island to island but they are just 
as likely to move north in the fall as to move south. On the north 
end of Banks Island McClure found them abundant in midwinter 
seventy years ago, and we found them more abundant in the north 
end of the island than anywhere else every winter while we lived 
there. The bull caribou shed their horns about the middle of winter, 
and even the summer traveler cannot fail to notice that the horns of 
bull caribou are scattered over every arctic island that he visits. 

No more than the caribou and musk oxen do the wolves that 
feed on them go south. The white foxes leave the islands and the 
mainland, ninety per cent, of them, but they go north rather than 
south. What they really do is to leave the land for the sea ice, 
where they subsist through the winter on remnants of seals that 
have been killed and not completely devoured by the polar bears. 
The lemmings stay in the north. Most owls and most ravens go 
south but some spend the winter north. Fully half the ptarmigan 
remain north of the arctic circle. The hares live in winter about 
where they do in summer. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 19 

To sum up, the arctic sea is lifeless except that it contains about 
as much life to the cubic mile of water as any other sea. The 
arctic land is lifeless except for millions of caribou and of foxes, 
tens of thousands of wolves and of musk oxen, thousands of polar 
bears, billions of insects and millions of birds. And all these go 
south in the fall except the insects which die as they do in temperate 
lands, and except the ptarmigan, caribou, foxes, wolves, musk oxen, 
polar bears, lemmings, hares, weasels, owls, and ravens, all of which 
we have named in approximately the order of their decreasing nu- 
merical strength.* 

Then there is the "silent north." Nothing is more characteristic 
of the Arctic as it has been imagined to be than its silence. But 
it will appear just how silent a summer must be where the air is 
continually filled with the hum of the blue-bottle fly, ubiquitously 
waiting to deposit its larvae, and the buzz of the mosquitoes, hover- 
ing in clouds to suck the blood of man or beast. There are the 
characteristic cries of the plovers and the snipes and the various 
sandpipers and smaller birds, the squawking of ducks, the cackling 
of geese, and the louder though rarer cries of the crane and the 
swan. And especially the night is resonant (if you are "of a nervous 
temperament" you will say hideous) with the screaming of loons, 
in its nature somewhere between the scream of a demented woman 
and the yowling of cats on a back fence. 

Two characteristic noises of southern lands are absent. There 
is not the rustle of leaves nor the roar of traffic. Nor is there the 
beating of waves upon a shore except in summer. But none of these 
sounds are heard upon the more southerly prairies. The treeless 
plains of Dakota when I was a boy were far more silent than 
ever the Arctic has been in my experience. In both places I have 
heard the whistling of the wind and the howl of wolves and the 
sharp bark of the fox at night; in both places I have heard the 
ground crack with the frost of winter like the report of a rifle, al- 
though these sounds are more characteristic of the Arctic. In the 
far North not only is the ground continually cracking when the 
temperature is changing and especially when it is dropping, but 
near the sea at least there is, not always but on occasion, a con- 
tinuous and to those in exposed situations a terrifying noise. When 
the ice is being piled against a polar coast there is a high-pitched 
screeching as one cake slides over the other, like the thousand-times 

*0n the arctic prairies of the mainland there remain for the winter also 
the muskrat and the grizzly bear. Of the sea life only whales and walruses 
are known to go south. 



20 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

magnified creaking of a rusty hinge. There is the crashing when 
cakes as big as a church wall, after being tilted on edge, finally pass 
beyond their equilibrium and topple down upon the ice; and when 
extensive floes, perhaps six or more feet in tliickness, gradually bend 
under the resistless pressure of the pack until they buckle up and 
snap, there is a groaning as of supergiants in torment and a boom- 
ing which at a distance of a mile or two sounds like a cannonade. 

"The eternal polar silence," writes the poet in his London attic. 
But Shackleton's men, as quoted in his book "South," now and again 
commence their diary entries with the words "din. Din, DIN." 
Robert Service some distance south of the arctic circle in a small 
house in the city of Dawson, wrote much of the arctic silence. 
But we of the far north never forget the boom and screech and 
roar of the polar pack. 

The literary north is barren, dismal and desolate. Here we are 
dealing with words of indefinite meaning into which each of us 
reads what significance he chooses. 

Part of my bringing up was on the level and treeless Dakota 
prairie where I heard daily plaints from my mother expressed in 
one or another and sometimes in all of these adjectives. She had 
been brought up within sight of magnificent snow-capped moun- 
tains with deep purples and blues in the folds of the hills, and what 
she was really complaining about was that the prairies had no 
mountains in the distance. They were also treeless, but so had 
been my mother's mountain home, and she had no longing for trees 
and even almost a dislike for them. I heard the same complaints 
of the dreariness and desolation of the prairie from our neighbors. 
They, like us, were newcomers, but from a country of forest and 
hill. No doubt they had read much of the beauty of the mountains 
and were willing to concede it in the abstract, but what they were 
lonesome for was the shade and the rustle of trees and the relief 
to the eye of hedgerows and orchards. To my mother desolation 
meant absence of mountains; to them it meant absence of trees; 
but to me, brought up on the prairie, the desolation was not per- 
ceived and the complaints were cries without meaning. When I 
later moved to a country of hills and woods I had a feeling of being 
restrained, shut in. A mountain on the horizon does not trouble me. 
But even to this day when I get close in among them my most 
pronounced feeling is that they shut out the view. No matter how 
high the peak that you climb, there are all around other peaks, 
each with its secret behind it. No landscape is open, free, fair and 
aboveboard but the level prairie or the wide-stretching sea. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 21 

Few of the explorers of the far north have come from a moun- 
tainous country but most of them have been brought up among 
hills and woods. So what they mean when they call the north 
barren is that it is devoid of trees, and when they say desolation they 
mean absence of cultivation and habitations of men in the sense 
in which they are familiar with them. Two stories on one subject 
illustrate this completely and give, I believe, the whole truth of 
why we have so often been told that the north is barren and desolate. 

A young man by the name of Thomas Simpson had come in 
1838 direct from his home among the woods and hedges of Eng- 
land to the limit of the forest area on the arctic circle, just north 
of Great Bear Lake. Except for the Atlantic voyage he had 
traveled to Bear Lake chiefly if not entirely through a country of 
hills and woods, and here for the first time in his life he was face 
to face with the open country. He came to a lake about thirty 
miles long surrounded by hills of varied form. There were trees 
at the east end but he could see them only in the far distance; 
there were trees at the west end which he probably did not see 
at all. He did what is customary when a European "discovers" 
some place to which he has been guided by the natives whose an- 
cestors have been brought up in the vicinity: he gave the lake a 
name. He named it ''Dismal Lake." And in his book he goes 
nearly to the limits of the language in telling us how desolate and 
dreary, forlorn and forbidding, blasted and barren the country was. 

Half a century later there grew up in England a man by the 
name of David Hanbury. He did not come to the far north di- 
rectly from England by a route exclusively through woods. For 
one thing, he had purchased a ranch and lived on it off and on for 
years in Wyoming. He was familiar with the prairie and even 
with the uninhabited prairie. He had read Thomas Simpson's 
book, and the adjectives had made enough impression upon him so 
that when he approached Dismal Lake he expected the place to 
live up to its name. But all Thomas Simpson had really meant 
when he strained his vocabulary was that trees were absent or far 
away and that there was some snow on the ground. To Hanbury 
treelessness and a covering of snow would not of themselves have 
constituted desolation. Perhaps partly as a reaction against 
Simpson, he goes to the other extreme and describes the lake- as 
a wilderness paradise. Simpson chanced to come to the lake in 
winter and Hanbury in summer, but this was not where the differ- 
ence lay, as Hanbury makes clear and as I can testify personally. 
For with a familiarity with the prairie and with treeless mountains 



22 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

equal to Hanbury's, I have lived a year in the vicinity of Dismal 
Lake and visited it both summer and winter, and I agree with 
Hanbury that the man who describes such a place as dismal, deso- 
Icite and dreary is telling nothing of interest beyond revealing the 
peculiar meaning which certain common words have in his mind. 

Those parts of Manitoba which produce more to the acre of the 
best wheat than" almost any other part of the world are still fre- 
quently described as barren and desolate by visitors from a forest 
country, even by those who will concede that it is "the bread basket 
of the world." When land of great money value and acknowledged 
fertility is described as barren and desolate, we have the key to the 
common impression that the north deserves these terms. 

You will remember that the North and especially the stars as 
seen in the North are frequently referred to as "cruel." This is a 
purely subjective word. The surf that is a delight to a strong 
swimmer may seem cruel to a landlubber who falls in. It is so with 
the North. If you are sufficiently inept at meeting its conditions, 
you may find it as relentless as the sea; but if you know its ways 
you find it exceedingly friendly and homelike. 

One might go on almost indefinitely demolishing common con- 
cepts about the North, but we shall end with the depressing effect 
of arctic darkness. 

When I first went North to spend the winter of 1906-07, I was 
a good deal of a hero. I had all the wrong notions about the North, 
or nearly all, for I had read most of the books that had been written 
on the subject. But, like the typical explorer, I was brave and 
prepared to fight the best fight I knew how and to die if necessary 
for the advancement of science. (You see I came from an instruc- 
torship in a university, and "science," rather than adventure or a 
desire for the laurels of the hero-martyr, loomed great before me.) 
I discreetly feared all the terrors of the North but I feared the 
darkness most. For in addition to the published books I had come 
in contact with miners from Alaska who had told me how people 
up there went crazy and shot themselves, either because of the 
depressing effect of the winter darkness or because of the nervous 
strain and insomnia caused by the "eternal daylight" of summer. 

Fortunately for me, this winter was not spent with men like 
myself. In that case we might have hypnotized each other into 
actually feeling what we expected to feel. I had gone to an ap- 
pointed rendezvous at the mouth of the Mackenzie but the ship 
that was to meet me there never turned up and I, the only white 
man in the vicinity, had to throw in my lot with the Eskimos. I 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 23 

was surprised at their kindness, courtesy and hospitality. I was 
surprised at how little conspicuous were the filth and other horrors 
I had read about, although there was enough for literary material 
if suitably magnified. But what surprised me most was that the 
sun was sinking lower every day and the darkness coming on apace 
without these benighted people appearing to worry at all over the 
circumstance. Four of them could speak broken English. As I 
remember it now, three out of these four expressed a frank surprise 
when I intimated that I dreaded the coming darkness; but the 
fourth said that he was familiar with the thought, for he had been 
on whaling ships and had often heard "tenderfeet" who were spend- 
ing their first winter in the Arctic talking about the coming dark- 
ness. He himself had been put up to it by some mischievous per- 
sons to invent for the benefit of these green hands dreadful stories 
about the gloom of a coming winter. But privately he regarded 
dread of the darkness as one of the peculiarities of white men which 
he did not understand, and he went on to say that he noticed that 
the old whalers who had been in the North a long time soon got 
over it. 

This ought to have been encouraging. But I was so obsessed 
with the "winter night" that I actually succeeded in working myself 
into something of a depression, and when, after an absence of 
several weeks, the sun came again, I walked half a mile to the top 
of a hill to get the first possible glimpse of it and wrote in my 
diary what a cheerful and wonderful sight it was. I never did this 
again. Now, after ten winters in the North, the return of the 
sun is scarcely more impressive to me, though more definitely noted, 
than the stopping of it at the summer or winter solstice when I 
am living in New York. And if I make mention of it in my diary 
the entry is never longer than half a line and is usually when I am 
on a journey to indicate roughly the latitude — for the day upon 
which the sun returns and the portion of it visible above the horizon 
the first day depend mainly on two factors, the latitude and the 
refraction, which latter in turn depends in part on temperature. 

I have found that the ordinary ship's crew can be divided with 
regard to the arctic night into three sections : The most intelligent 
men, such as for instance young college graduates, can have the 
fear of the darkness explained away completely and they will pass 
their first "winter night" without any noticeable depression. The 
second group, such as the typical sailor or Alaska miner, have heard 
a great deal about how depressing the darkness is and you can 
explain yourself black in the face without their believing you. 



24 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

They remember that Jones went crazy and they have not forgotten 
what Smith told them about his first winter, and they know they 
are going to be depressed. And they are depressed, to a degree at 
least. The third group are such men as Hawaii Islanders, Cape 
Verde Islanders, or southern negroes, whom we frequently have in 
our northern crews. They have never heard of the depressing ef- 
fect of winter darkness and are quite as ready to believe the local 
Eskimos and the captain of the ship who say that the gloom of win- 
ter is imaginary, as to believe the forecastle men who are in dread of 
it. I have questioned every one of the men of this type whom I have 
met and none of them have noticed that they were appreciably 
depressed by their first "arctic night." 

The winter darkness is to the Eskimo about what the hottest 
period of summer is to the city dweller. The darkness, as such, 
may not be agreeable to the Eskimo any more than the heat, as 
such, is agreeable to the man of the city, but to each of them it 
means the vacation period. The clerk gets his two weeks in which 
he can go to the seaside or to the mountains. The Eskimo has 
found it inconvenient to hunt during the periods of extreme darkness 
and sees to it that he has laid by a sufficient store of food to take 
him through for a month or two. Having no real work to do, he 
makes long journeys to visit his friends and, arrived, spends his 
time in singing, dancing and revelry. For this reason most Eskimos 
look forward to the winter darkness more than to any other period. 
The darkness of Christmas shows itself to be about as depressing 
on the north coast of Canada as the darkness of midnight on 
Broadway. 

The soundest reasoning leads to the wrongest conclusions when 
the premises are false. On the basis of the Arctic as it is supposed 
to be the Eskimos would be as wretched in the circumstances of 
their lives as theory makes them. But the fact that they are not 
wretched has penetrated to most of us through the uniform asser- 
tions of about ninety per cent, of the northern travelers and ten per 
cent, of the northern missionaries. Although most explorers have 
filled their books with accounts of what a happy, carefree life is 
led by the Eskimos, a few have called them wretched, meaning really 
thereby that they imagine they themselves would be wretched if 
they had to live as the Eskimos are living. No one of them can have 
failed to notice how much leisure the Eskimos have for games, story- 
telling, singing, dancing and the enjoyment of life in general, and 
most explorers will agree that an Eskimo laughs as much in a month 
as the average white man does in a year. One reason why the Es- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 25 

kimo is happy is that in the uncivilized state he usually has enough 
wholesome food to keep him in perfect health. And if there is a 
royal road to happiness it is through health. From the missionary 
we must, if we are logical, expect a rather more pessimistic picture. 
He is by profession a reformer and goes North to improve conditions ; 
if he found them excellent his work would, by his own confession, 
be useless. Some missionaries too, are so deeply religious (in the 
orthodox sense) that they are constitutionally incapable of con- 
ceiving that any one can really be happy unless he has been "saved." 

When we realize that the Eskimos secure their living with little 
labor as compared with the rest of us, and that they are healthy 
and happy, it dawns on us that they are really inhabiting a desir- 
able country. Nearly every close observer from Sir John Richard- 
son down has pointed out that on the continent of North America 
the relation of the Eskimos to the Indians south of them has always 
been aggressive, and though there is fear on both sides, still the 
Indians are far more frightened of the Eskimos than the Eskimos 
are of the Indians. It follows, then, that the Eskimos have not 
been crowded by a more powerful people into an undesirable place 
which they now inhabit. There is no more evidence that the 
Eskimos have been crowded north by the Indians than there is 
evidence that the present population of England are living there 
because crowded north by the French. 

But now comes the paradox of human conservatism everywhere. 
The Eskimos who inhabit these desirable coast lands and who are 
firmly of the opinion that they are desirable, were as grounded in 
the belief of the desolation and lifelessness of the ocean to the north 
of them as were the scientists or the explorers. The pioneer side of 
our work consisted in testing, in the way which we shall tell, the 
theory that the ice floes of the northern ocean, no less than the is- 
lands which sprinkle it, were capable of supporting life and that 
white men were competent to demonstrate it. The Eskimos con- 
sidered theory and test absurd, and would take no part in it. 

One attribute of a high civilization is a development of the 
spirit of adventure, of the will to experiment. It is possible to get 
some white men to try anything, no matter what the risk; but to 
get an Eskimo to try anything is not possible if the venture seems 
futile or dangerous. We do many things for honor and glory, for 
science and humanity, and some things for dare-deviltry; but to 
an Eskimo dare-deviltry is inconceivable and he could get neither 
honor nor glory from his own people by risking his life to establish 
a theory. They would consider his action merely silly and he would 



26 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

lose caste instead of winning it. Why should a man who lives in a 
country where seals are abundant and caribou can be had in addi- 
tion, concern himself about establishing the fact that seals are abun- 
dant in some other place where caribou cannot be had? Enough 
is as good as a feast; and if you have plenty of seals here, what 
more is there to be gained if seals are elsewhere? So we had to 
do our work without the assistance of the Eskimos and in a field 
which was as much beyond their intellectual vision as the ice a 
hundred miles offshore was beyond the vision of their eyes. 




P5 



m 



CHAPTER III 



WHEN our three ships sailed from the romantic ''Gold 
Camp" of Nome, Alaska, late in July, 1913, northward 
into the polar ocean, I was dissatisfied with our expedition 
in only one important respect. It was too sumptuously outfitted. 
Forethought appeared to have anticipated every eventuality. We 
had a plan ready for every accident: if plan A went wrong, then 
plan B would be substituted. We had a staff of thirteen scientific 
specialists to look after the gathering of information each in his 
own department. There was a good man, ably assisted, in com- 
mand of each of our ships, and in the Karluk, in which I sailed, I 
had Captain ''Bob" Bartlett * with the reputation of the world's best 
ice master, the confidence of the crew, and his alternative replies 
to any suggestion or order of mine — "Right sir!" when he felt 
formal and the crew were within earshot; otherwise "Don't you 
worry — leave it to me!" 

The trouble was, there seemed nothing left for the commander 
of such an expedition to do. "He spake, and it was so" promised 
to be the story of our enterprise. There may be much to be said 
for the fiat method of creating a universe, but it cannot be sup- 
posed to have been interesting. I feared I should be actually bored 
by all that smooth-working machinery. 

My fears on this score began to be gradually removed. First, 
the thirty-ton gasoline schooner, Alaska, under command of Dr. R. 
M. Anderson, had trouble with her engine and had to put into 
Teller, ninety miles north of Nome, for repairs. Then a gale came 
up and our two remaining ships separated. This was because 
Captain Peter Bernard of the Mary Sachs (30 tons, twin propellers, 
gasoline power) , with the advantage of local experience, believed in 
keeping his ship near shore, and did so, while Captain Bartlett, 
a "deep-sea skipper" from the Atlantic, struck for the open sea. 

It was a lively gale. Our 250-ton Karluk was carrying more 
than she should below decks, and on deck she had 150 tons with 

* For a brief "Who's Who" of the expedition, see the appendix. 

27 



28 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

which she would never have been allowed to sail had there been 
at the port of Nome rigid inspectors unwilling to except an explor- 
ing vessel from the rules that are supposed to promote the safety 
of ships at sea. She was so deep in the water with her heavy 
cargo that her decks were nearly awash, and in spite of good 
seamanship, crashing waves occasionally got a blow at the deck 
cargo, eventually shifting it enough to make her considerably 
lop-sided. Things were getting interesting when, after fifteen or 
twenty hours of a heavy sea, we got into the shelter of Cape 
Thompson. I don't believe the skipper would have liked to admit 
that we were running in for shelter as such, and so the understand- 
ing was that we pulled in there to wait for the Mary Sachs and 
to buy dogs and dog-feed. To get these commodities we followed 
up along the land to Point Hope. 

Point Hope is just beyond the reach of tourists and of the 
journalists who write fascinating magazine articles about "primi- 
tive people untouched by civilization." It lies in that tame inter- 
mediate zone where missionaries, equipped with victrolas and sup- 
plied by yearly shipments of canned goods, labor heroically for 
the betterment of the natives, who realize that they are badly off 
just as soon as they are told about it. It is one of the anomalies 
of our world that it should take the efforts of so many self-denying 
people to awaken the wretched to a consciousness of their wretch- 
edness. 

We occupied twenty or thirty hours in buying a few dogs and 
a great deal of walrus meat for dog-feed at the village of Point 
Hope, and we also engaged two Eskimos, Pauyurak and Asatsiak. 
It was my intention to hire a number of Eskimos eventually, but I 
preferred to pick them up farther east, where I am personally ac- 
quainted with them and have known many since they were children. 

I should have liked to wait for the Mary Sachs which pre- 
sumably was behind us, but our gale had been blowing from the 
north and it was likely that the ice was on its way though still 
unseen and possibly distant. It seemed better to get along east 
toward Point Barrow before the ice should block the way, leaving 
the Sachs to follow, if indeed she were behind. For about a hun- 
dred miles northeastward we had a beam wind from the northwest 
and open water. But the swell was gradually subsiding, so we 
knew the ice could not be far away. 

It is a principle of esthetics that you like what you are used 
to, and that nothing is so horrible as the absolutely strange. We 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 29 

are told by Plutarch that Hannibal's . generals had heard much 
before leaving Carthage of the ugliness of Alpine mountains but 
that when they came in sight of them the grewsomeness far ex- 
ceeded their worst fears. Similarly we southerners who have heard 
much of the horrors of the ice, and who associate it with such 
tragedies as the wreck of the Titanic or the death through starva- 
tion of Sir John Franklin's hundred men, are likely to feel about 
the polar pack when we come in contact with it that same sense 
of imaginings verified. But after years of friendly dealing with 
the ice, seeking my food upon its surface or at its margin, walking 
upon it by day and camping upon it comfortably at night, I am 
as much at ease among its floating cakes as the Swiss are among 
the Alps that horrified Hannibal's African generals. I have the 
feeling when I come to the ice from the open ocean that one native 
to forests may have when he comes to a wooded country after a 
journey over the prairie. I imagine Bartlett felt much as I did. 
I did not ask him. 

I was bom and brought up on the prairie, so I am always at 
home there. I have spent eleven years in close contact with the 
polar ice and shall always be at home there whenever I am able 
to get back to it. I am at home also in the big cities, for I got 
to them before I was yet mature and have lived in them for ten or 
fifteen years. But so far I have been unable to feel at home either 
in a forest or in a mountainous country, for my experience with them 
has never been long enough for me to become acclimated. I do 
not remember ever having more distinctly the feeling of home- 
coming than I did when, near Wainwright Inlet, the first line of 
white appeared upon the horizon. I climbed from the deck well 
up the rigging to have a good look at the pack. 

While the appearance of the ice was friendly and familiar, it 
was in another sense not propitious, for it meant delay. The north- 
west coast of Alaska between Point Hope and Point Barrow is 
shallow inshore, without a real harbor anywhere. The northerly 
wind had brought in from afar the ice which three or four days 
before had been out of sight from the entire coast, as we later 
learned from the natives. Now it was coming in at a speed of 
perhaps a mile an hour. It had already struck the coast ahead 
of us, and as we proceeded the space of open water became narrower 
until about thirty miles southwest of Point Barrow there was no 
chance for further progress. Bartlett accordingly put the nose 
of the ship against a big ice cake, saying to me that now that we 



30 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

had to stop anyhow, we might as well use the opportunity to teach 
our "bunch of scientific tenderfeet" that fresh water could be got 
from sea ice. 

This remark recalled a series of episodes beginning in an im- 
pressive suite in a London hotel where I had gone to call on Sir 
John Murray, who at that time divided with the Prince of Monaco 
the honor of being considered by scientific men the leading living 
authority on oceanography. I was in Europe for the purpose of 
securing special scientific equipment and a few experts for our 
technical staff, for, the expedition being British, we desired to get 
in other parts of the Empire, so far as possible, such men as were 
not available in Canada. On the advice of my friend, Dr. W. S. 
Bruce, Director of the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, and, 
so far as polar waters were concerned, a more trustworthy adviser 
than any one else in the world, I had already selected as the 
oceanographer for the expedition James Murray, who had been 
biologist with Shackleton on his first Antarctic expedition. Before 
serving with Shackleton James Murray had been associated with 
Sir John Murray in the Scottish Lochs Survey. We had now gone 
to call on Sir John for advice as to the proper equipment to carry 
and what problems to stress in our work. After a technical discus- 
sion of two or three hours as to various forms of sounding-machines, 
dredges, nets and other paraphernalia for ocean investigation, Sir 
John ordered refreshments and we spent a pleasant hour listening 
to his reminiscences of the Challenger Expedition "which discovered 
a new world at the bottom of the sea," and his later ocean ad- 
ventures. 

Among the stories told by Sir John was one of a cruise in north- 
ern waters, I think north of Norway or perhaps farther east. On 
this occasion they ran short of fresh water and something was 
wrong with the distilling apparatus, so that the ship's company 
were in difficulties. The sea where they were was mainly open, but 
here and there were small scattered floes, and off on the horizon 
they could see ice blink, indicating that more extensive ice was 
lying just beyond range of vision. It occurred to Sir John, he told 
us, that possibly this more extensive ice might have been formed 
in the mouth of one of the great Siberian rivers, for from his knowl- 
edge of ocean currents he thought it not at all improbable that 
ice which had lain in the mouth of one of these rivers the previous 
spring might now be floating somewhere in their vicinity, although 
the distance was considerable. He spoke of this possibility to the 
captain, and the ship steered towards the ice blink and presently 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 31 

found itself among substantial floes. They nosed carefully up to 
one of them. On examination they were gratified to find that this 
was "river ice from which they could get fresh water." 

At this point I asked Sir John how he knew it was river ice, 
and was dumbfounded by his reply: "It was obvious," he said, "for 
the water on top was nearly fresh and the ice itself, except on 
the edges where the spray had been dashing on it, also tasted 
fresh." In spite of being the greatest living oceanographer, Sir 
John was unaware of the fact, which I then supposed to be well- 
known to all polar explorers, that sea ice becomes fresh during the 
period intervening between its formation and the end of the first 
summer thereafter. 

Here we might digress again to comment on one of the differ- 
ences between an art and a science. Among polar explorers are 
some of the noblest names in the history of Britain since Elizabeth, 
and so it is in the histories of many of the other seafaring countries. 
Most of these explorers have been great sailors and gallant gentle- 
men; some of them, such as Franklin and Peary, have scarcely 
been sailors in the proper sense, though their careers have not been 
for that reason any less honorable nor less honored. But few of 
them have been scientists, and polar exploration has never been a 
science. It has been rather something between an art and a sport. 
It is the essence of the code of the scientist to publish at once 
for the use of the world every secret, whether of fundamental 
principle or of technique. But it is no violation of the ethics of a 
craft or of a sport to keep secret and to employ exclusively for one's 
self and one's immediate associates such knowledge as one has. 
I once asked Peary why he had not published certain things that 
we were talking about, and his reply was, "My dear boy, I am 
not printing anything until I have got the Pole." It was only 
after he had reached the Pole and after he had retired that he wrote 
his book, "Secrets of Polar Travel." 

I have found, since the point first came to my attention, that 
although some polar explorers knew that sea ice becomes fresh a 
large number never discovered it. In view of this it is really not so 
astonishing that Sir John Murray, although he had been a student of 
the ocean all his life, had overlooked this fact; for, after all, his work 
had been done mainly in tropical and temperate regions. There are 
few things considered more certain than that the ocean is salt, and 
there is no inference more logical (although no inference is ever 
really logical) than that the ice of salt water must also be salt. 

Because of his position as leading authority on the subject 



I 



32 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and because I had already approached him in the attitude of one 
who knows little and hopes to learn much, I felt reluctant about 
explaining to Sir John my knowledge of the freshness of sea ice. 
For one thing, it is always a delicate matter to spoil a good story 
by taking away the point of it. However, I tried in a diffident 
way to explain that I also had had the idea of the saltness of sea 
ice when I first went North, but that I had learned from Eskimos 
that it was fresh, through observing that they commonly make 
their drinking water from it and that this drinking water is per- 
fectly fresh to the taste. Also I suggested that if there were any 
salt it would appear when one makes tea, for the quality of water 
is then peculiarly apparent. We had used it for five Arctic winters, 
I said, without ever finding any salty flavor in the tea, except 
where we had chosen ice that had been dashed by salt spray so 
late in the fall that the spray had frozen on the outside. Even 
then fresh water could be secured by chipping off the outer or spray 
layer and using the inside of the piece. 

Indeed, I don't think I got quite so far as this in my explana- 
tion when I noticed that Sir John was not looking responsive. Some 
interruption occurred, and he changed the topic. Evidently he 
cared for no information from me on this subject and had no idea 
that what I was telling him was anything more than some unsup- 
ported heresy of mine. As we walked to our hotel I commented 
to James Murray upon how extraordinary it was that this eminent 
oceanographer did not know the freshness of sea ice. I took it for 
granted that my companion agreed with me and did not realize 
until months later that he had received my remarks in the silence 
of disbelief. 

One day at Nome, when the Karluk was lying in the roadstead 
loading up, I received a written request on behalf of the scientific 
staff to meet them at a certain hour to discuss the equipment of 
the Karluk. I thought at first it was the scientific equipment they 
wanted to discuss, and it seemed to me rather late in the day, 
since nothing of that sort could very well be purchased at Nome. 
It turned out that what they had on their minds was the water 
tanks of the ship. They pointed out to me that on the voyage from 
Victoria to Nome, while they had not actually gone short of fresh 
water, they had been obliged to be very careful with it. They 
had had enough, for instance, to wash their faces with, but had 
been compelled to take their baths exclusively with salt water. 
If the voyage had been a little longer they would have had to 
wash even their faces and hands in salt water, reserving the fresh 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 33 

water entirely for cooking and drinking. It seemed to them there- 
fore that I should do something about increasing the capacity of 
the fresh water tanks. 

This proposition astounded me. I had considered carefully the 
capacity of the tanks in relation to the voyage from Victoria to 
Nome, which is almost as long as the Atlantic voyage from New 
York to Liverpool. In consultation with Bartlett I had decided 
that the tanks would be adequate even for this voyage, and now 
that we had reached Nome and were on the outskirts of the polar 
sea, it had appeared to me that all doubts were over. I suggested 
that it would be only a few hundred miles until we should be 
among the polar ice. I said that the ordinary method of naviga- 
tion in Alaska is to follow the land as you proceed eastward, never 
going far from shore and always keeping between the land and the 
ice. We could go inshore for water at any time, but if we went 
too far offshore and got beset, we should always be able to get 
fresh water off the ice itself. 

At this point Murray became party spokesman. He said that 
in winter it would be easy to get snow for cooking and drinking, 
but that in summer there would be no snow on the sea ice, and that 
if the ship became hemmed ^in by floes in such a way that it was 
impossible to reach the land, we could have no way of getting 
drinking-water. When he had been in the Antarctic with Shackle- 
ton they had sometimes used ice for cooking, but that was different, 
for it was always glacier ice they used. It was well known there 
are no icebergs or fragments of glacier ice in the sea north of 
Alaska. And he went on to say that I might possibly consider it 
to smack of insubordination, but that he had been constrained 
to tell the other members of the scientific staff in this connection 
about my interview with Sir John Murray, where he had himself 
been present and where Sir John, who was the greatest authority 
on the ocean living, had dismissed as ridiculous my suggestion that 
salt water ice became fresh. It was only then I recalled the silence 
of James Murray on that walk home. 

It turned out impossible for me to convince my staff that it 
would be safe on the score of drinking water to take a ship out 
among the ocean ice. A number of them were prepared to resign, 
considering that a person so lacking in judgment and discretion 
as to be willing to take an entire ship's company into a position 
where they might all die of thirst must be in general unsuitable 
for the command of any arctic expedition. 

Had I known in advance the topic of the meeting I should have 



34 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

suggested that Bartlett be present. I now went to him and asked 
him about his experience with getting fresh water off sea ice. He 
replied that it was well known among the Newfoundland sealers 
that you could always get it and that they never carried large 
fresh water tanks on that account. In fact, there had never been 
a time when Bartlett did not know that salt water ice became 
fresh. 

At the time Bartlett thought he would have no trouble in con- 
vincing the scientific staff, but he told me later that he had had "a 
hell of a time to get some of that crowd to see reason." He did 
succeed in a measure, at least to the extent that I heard nothing 
further about the size of the tanks, and I had nearly forgotten the 
incident when his remark about "showing our bunch of scientist 
tenderfeet that ocean ice is fresh" recalled the whole train of 
events. 

After the ship had been tied to a floe, the first officer, John 
Anderson, went "ashore" on the ice, dragging the end of a long 
rubber hose to a small pond on the surface about ten yards from 
the edge, and water was pumped in till all our fresh water tanks 
were full. 

The next meal was a triumph for the staff. Somebody remarked 
that the coffee was bad, and it was found that much of the food 
was more or less spoiled through being too salty. When the cook 
informed us that it must be because of the water, a sampling 
brought out the fact that it was indubitably brackish. There were 
several remarks passed then about the probability of the laws of 
nature working on polar expeditions as they did elsewhere, and 
Scripture was quoted to the effect that salt is not likely to lose its 
savor. 

This miscarriage hurt Bartlett more than it did me, for a man 
who commands sailors for years finds it useful and almost neces- 
sary to appear infallible. But we were both soon justified. The 
trouble was that the mate, being a new man, had taken water 
from a pond near enough to the edge of the floe to have been filled 
with salt spray during the recent gale. The ship's tank had to be 
emptied and the hose carried a few yards to another pond remote 
enough from the edge so that the water in it was produced either 
by the falling of rain upon the floe or directly by the sunshine. 
The tanks were then filled with perfectly fresh water, and that 
trouble was over. 

When we tied up to the floe we had a sea of scattered ice behind, 
l)ut ahead between us and Point Barrow everything was packed 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 35 

tight. It was only a question of hours, if the wind remained in 
the same northerly quarter, until we should be as closely hemmed 
in from behind as we were before. The wind did not change, and 
by noon the next day everything was so closely pressed together 
that we felt sure of being able to walk ashore, although the distance 
was several miles. We had drifted ahead since tying up and the 
village of Cape Smythe now lay only about twenty-five miles 
ahead. I thought it would be a good idea to walk to land and 
then up the beach to make some purchases in the village and pos- 
sibly to hire some Eskimos, these to be picked up by the Karluk 
whenever the ice opened again so she could proceed. Thus we 
might save a day or two of time. To give Dr. Mackay a chance 
to compare the Arctic with the Antarctic, I invited him to come 
with me. A dog sled carrying a canoe for use in an emergency 
accompanied us ashore, but we found not the least trouble in hop- 
ping from cake to cake even in places where there was a little 
water separating them, and finally from the last cake to the beach.- 
The sled with the boat returned to the Karluk and we started on 
our walk northeastward. 

The first thing the Doctor noticed was the prairie-like character 
of the land, for grass covered everything. I think he almost hoped 
at first that this was the exception, but by the time we had walked 
a few miles over a country something between a prairie and a 
meadow he finally asked if all the Arctic was like this. It did not 
come at all up to his expectations; or, rather, it did not come 
down to his expectations. He had been reading the literature of 
arctic exploration from childhood. Eternal ice and everlasting 
snow, silence and desolation were what he expected. When he 
found instead green grass, twittering birds and buzzing mosquitoes, 
he felt like one who runs a long way expecting to see a fire and 
finds no houses burning. I was able to reconcile him to the sit- 
uation somewhat by promising in due course winter blizzards, fairly 
low temperatures, and a few worthy difficulties. 

But it was clear that his general feeling remained one of disap- 
pointment, if not disdain. This was nearly the most northerly 
point of continental North America, and it measured up to neither 
the books that he had read nor the Antarctic in which he had 
spent a year. The fact is, however, that although in appearance 
the Antarctic does come more nearly up to story-book standards, 
it is an easier country to deal with, especially for those who come 
to it burdened with the heroic ideals of the classic explorer. Peary 
has made this clear in various of his books and other writings. 



36 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

On the way to Cape Smy the the Doctor and I met a party of 
Eskimos tending one of their herds of domestic reindeer. We 
walked among the herd and found them fat, considering the season, 
and much tamer than range cattle in places like Montana or Al- 
*berta, although not so tame that you could walk up and touph 
them. Commonly they allowed you to get within ten or fifteen 
feet and then moved quietly away. The Doctor ran after some of 
them, pretending he was trying to catch them, and they just kept 
out of his reach. Very likely they were used to being similarly 
pursued by the Eskimo children. Incidentally I learned that one 
of the Eskimo owners now had about a thousand head of reindeer. 
As there were many other Eskimos willing to buy them from him 
for twenty-five dollars per head paid in furs, and as he was a clever 
trader and could easily have made on the furs an additional profit, 
we can say that his property in reindeer alone was worth over 
$25,000. This Eskimo, named Takpuk, was also doing whaling on 
a large scale and employing others to trap for him, so that he had 
in his service about a hundred and fifty men. He was, therefore, 
both for wealth and enterprise a remarkable exception to what we 
suppose Eskimos to be, although not so much of an exception to 
what Eskimos really are. 

At Cape Smy the. I was among old friends. I knew most of Its 
three or four hundred Eskimos, and the Europeans were either 
friends or acquaintances. In the Government school were Mr. and 
Mrs. G. W. Cram, and at what had formerly been the whaling sta- 
tion but is now mainly a trading establishment were my old and very 
real friends Charles D. Brower, Jack Hadley, and Fred Hopson, 
Mr. Brower being the resident manager and part owner of the Cape 
Smythe Whaling & Trading Company. 

During the next two days I engaged the single Eskimo, Katak- 
tovik, and the married man, Kurraluk, with his wife, Keruk, and 
their two children. I also engaged Hadley; and there were many 
reasons why I wanted him. For one thing, all my Karluk men were 
new in the Arctic except Bartlett, and Bartlett came from a part 
of the Arctic where conditions are so fundamentally different from 
what they are around Alaska that I felt the need of at least one 
man with whom I could talk over local conditions with a certainty 
that he had the knowledge necessary to criticize my own ideas 
and give opinions of value. I had the highest opinion of Hadley's 
judgment, both because of the sort of man he was and because 
he had been living on the north coast of Alaska acquiring experience 
for more than twenty years. His experience was of all sorts. He 




The Adaptability of the Skin Boat. 
(1) Umiak being hauled on sled. (2) Umiak under paddles in narrow shore lead. 
(3) Umiak raised on edge to shield goods from rain. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 37 

had been trapper and trader, and a whaler both on board ships and 
with the Eskimos in their skin-boats. 

This last was an important consideration, for I look upon the 
Eskimo skin boat, as do all those in Alaska who have had experi- 
ence with it, as the one boat suited for use among ice. Such a 
skin boat, or umiak, when thirty feet long, which is a common 
size, will carry a cargo much larger than a 28-foot whale-boat, 
although the whale-boat is three or four times as heavy. And the 
whale-boat besides is very fragile. When the ordinary clinker- 
built whale-boat is moving at a speed of six miles an hour it is 
easily stove by contact with even a small fragment of floating ice, 
while an Eskimo skin-boat going at the same speed can bump 
into ice of almost any shape or size without injury. With a whale- 
boat it is as if the ice were struck by an egg-shell; with a skin-boat 
it is as if it were struck by a football. In one case there is a 
crash and a dead stop ; in the other a thump and a rebound. And 
if the umiak suffers injury it is merely a cracked rib that can be 
replaced, or a hole in the skin which can be patched with needle 
and thread. An umiak capable of carrying more than a ton of 
freight can be carried over land or solid ice by two men, and if 
placed on a low sled of the type used for such boats it can be 
pulled along by three or four dogs, or two or three men. 

Any one who goes to the polar regions in ships realizes that any 
ship, no matter what the strength or what the style of construction, 
will be broken by ice pressure if the pressure comes in any but a 
certain way. If a ship is wedge-shaped like the Fram, or is semi- 
circular in cross-section like the Roosevelt, she may be lifted up by 
ice pressure if the ice is so low that it strikes her below her line 
of greatest diameter. But as her greatest diameter is only a few 
feet above the water, and as some ice cakes are ten, fifteen or 
twenty feet out of water, it is generally luck that determines 
whether the pressure is so applied as to lift the ship or to crush her. 

Peary says that ^'any vessel navigating in polar waters may at 
any time be crushed so suddenly that nothing below can be saved." * 
I am glad Peary puts this so clearly, for although I know of no 
whaling captain or experienced ice traveler who is of any other 
opinion, still, there is among arm-chair explorers a very common 
belief that ships of a certain design or strength are immune against 
being crushed. 

Realizing this, I was naturally particular about providing not 
only the plans but the equipment for retreat towards land in such 

♦"Secrets of Polar Travel," by R. E. Peary, p. 109. 



38 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

an event. The central item in any such equipment, in my opinion, 
should be the skin-boat. If a ship is crushed by rapidly moving and 
tumbling ice floes in the summer, a retreat from her with any equip- 
ment may become dangerous. But if she is broken in winter, then the 
process of breaking up is fairly sure to be slow, giving ample time 
to place on reasonably stable ice in the vicinity any equipment that 
one cares to save. The crew of the Karluk would be about thirty, 
and a typical skin-boat will carry about that many people. Ac- 
cordingly I purchased an umiak and planned that in case of danger 
it would be the first thing saved and placed on the ice. If the wreck 
of the ship occurred in winter the umiak would be put on a low 
sledge, which I also bought for the purpose, and hauled towards shore 
over the ice either by men or by dogs. As shown in the adjoining il- 
lustrations, we frequently travel with such a boat hauled by five or 
six dogs and carrying inside of it all the camp equipment of the party. 
And along with this boat I wanted Hadley, who through much 
experience was not only a master in the handling of skin-boats 
but knew how to make and repair them. Of course our Eskimos 
were familiar with these things but their knowledge would not be 
so useful in a party of white men as the knowledge of a man like 
Hadley, who had also the ability to explain and, if necessary, to 
command. The boat and Hadley were therefore taken partly as 
insurance against a by no means improbable breaking of our ship. 

We spent two days very pleasantly as guests of Mr. Brower at his 
station. After my purchases for the ship's use had been made, I bought 
some Eskimo ethnological specimens and in particular a clay pot which 
Mr. Brower had been able to secure for me. Although on previous expe- 
ditions I had dug up bushels of fragments of clay pots, I had found no 
unbroken specimen. In view of the fact that some authorities have 
doubted that the Eskimos of northern Alaska made clay pots at all 
and in view of their rarity in any event, this was something of a prize. 
Another remarkable specimen was a lip button, or labret, made of "Amer- 
ican jade" (jadite). This beautiful stone is one of the toughest and 
least workable, and still the ancient Eskimos made adzes, knives and 
ornaments of it. 

The custom of wearing lip buttons, like any other fashion with which 
we are not familiar, seems to us strange and possibly grotesque. Ac- 
cording to tradition, the Eskimo women used to wear them, but in 
historic times they have been used only by the men. It is said the 
women had one perforation in the middle of the lower lip. If that is so, 
their method of wearing them was the same as that of the Indians of 
southern Alaska. But the Eskimo men have two holes pierced in the 
lower lip, one below each corner of the mouth. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 39 

The initial perforations are made when a boy is fourteen or sixteen 
years old, when little plugs are put in, just big enough to keep the 
hole from closing up entirely. As the healing takes place it is the 
mucous membrane of the inside of the mouth rather than the skin of 
the outside of the face that forms the lining of these holes. After the 
healing is complete, bigger and bigger plugs are put in until the hole in 
the lip is somewhat bigger in diameter than a lead pencil. The orna- 
ments are then put in by one of two methods: either they are inserted 
from the inside, somewhat as a collar-button is put in a shirt, or they 
are buttoned in from the outside, if it is desired to wear one of the large 
labrets. 

I was now able to buy one of jadite that, as I remember it, must 
have been about two inches and a half long and more than an inch 
wide. This ornament, that would have been unique in the ethnological 
collection of any museum, was unfortunately later lost, and we have 
not even a photograph to show what it looked like. I suppose the Eski- 
mos considered it beautiful, but to us it would have been remarkable 
chiefly in showing to what grotesque lengths ornamentation may go, for 
when buttoned into one corner of the mouth it would have extended 
below the chin of the wearer and up his cheek fully halfway to the eye. 

The custom of wearing labrets once extended from the most southerly 
Eskimos on the south coast of Alaska around the west end of the penin- 
sula and east along the north coast into Canada as far as Cape Bathurst. 
When I first came to the mouth of the Mackenzie in 1906 it was still 
customary to pierce the lips of young men, although there were some 
who refused to have it done. A year or two later the practice was 
definitely abandoned and now perforated lips are seen only among men 
of middle age or beyond. 

It would be of ethnological interest to know why the labret fashion 
did not extend east beyond Cape Bathurst. Following the tendency 
to seize upon explanations that are "sensible," some writers have pointed 
out that the severity of the climate increases gradually as you go east- 
ward from Bering Straits, so that labrets could not be worn to the 
eastward without great danger of freezing the face. The stone of which 
the labrets were made was assumed to be a good conductor of heat, and to 
induce freezing of the parts immediately touching it. The trouble with 
this eplanation is, first, that the postulated increasing severity of winter 
climate as you go east is by no means pronounced; and second, that 
no such freezing as premised has ever been known to occur. I have 
observed that Eskimos who take their labrets out while in the warmth 
of the house put them in before going out of doors into the most severe 
weather, and I have found on inquiry no Eskimo who has ever heard 
of freezing of the lip brought about by the wearing of a labret. On the 
other hand, being without the labret out of doors is inconvenient for 
those who have perforated lips, for the holes in many cases are so low 
that the saliva streams out through them and down the chin if they are 
not plugged up with a button of some sort. This happened in the 



40 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

house also and some of the old men had to be continually wiping their 
chins. Outdoors, however, the wiping could not be done comfortably 
and it would have been very messy to have the saliva stream down on 
the front of the fur coat. So the real labrets were formerly worn on 
going out; and now that the fashion has set against these ornaments, 
inconspicuous wooden or ivory buttons are worn on going outdoors in 
cold weather by those still living whose lips are pierced. 

It is more probable that the Eskimos got the fashion by coming in 
contact with labret-using Indians on the southern coast of Alaska, that 
the fashion gradually spread from those Indians northward and east- 
ward for a thousand miles or so through the Eskimo country, and that 
it had not had time to pass beyond Cape Bathurst. We have some 
traditional evidence to support this view. Moreover, we know that the 
tobacco habit was spreading similarly east along the north coast and 
had reached the mouth of the Mackenzie about a hundred years ago. 
Roughly seventy years ago it got to Cape Bathurst, about the same time 
as the first white visitors. The coming of the whites accelerated the 
eastward spread of the tobacco habit because the whites were used to it : 
but it stopped the labret fashion because the whites were not used to it 
and brought their influence against it. 





o 
< 

il 

EH m 

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ci: 
o 

b 




Mackenzie Family. 




Eskimo School Children at Barrow. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE SEEDS OF TRAGEDY 

OUR second day at Cape Smythe the Karluk, somewhat to our 
surprise, came into view. The wind was still northwesterly 
and the ice was densely packed against the land. She was not 
coming along steaming through any open water, but was being car- 
ried helpless by a current that was grinding the ice northeastward 
along the coast. Sometimes she was moving broadside on, sometimes 
stern foremost, and at all times she was powerless. Her speed was 
probably about half a mile per hour. When she came near the village 
it was apparent that she was going to pass us at a distance of less 
than a mile from shore. Although the ice cakes were drifting, rising 
on edge, quivering, cracking and splashing, this was all in the slow 
and nearly uniform way which does not worry Eskimos or other 
persons used to traveling over ice. So we loaded our umiak on a 
sledge, loaded other sledges with the supplies purchased, and with 
the assistance of half a hundred Eskimos and many dog teams 
belonging to Mr. Brower and to them, succeeded in getting all our 
gear aboard the Karluk as she drifted by. We then said good-by 
to our friends, expecting not to see them again for two or three 
years. 

While at Cape Smythe we learned that had we come along 
two or three days earlier we should have found nothing but open 
water and there would have been no trouble for either a steamer 
or a sailing vessel to get around Point Barrow, the extreme tip of 
which is about ten miles northeast from Cape Smythe. Two ships 
had, in fact, passed around safely and easily, the Elvira, com- 
manded by Captain C. T. Pedersen, and the Polar Bear, com- 
manded by her owner, Captain Louis Lane. 

A mile or two beyond Cape Smythe while we were still being 
ground along by the ice, the Karluk began to creak. The ice did 
not appear very heavy and a discussion arose among the men as to 
whether the Karluk, if more powerful, might have been able to 
break her way from the grip of the ice and proceed as she pleased. 
It was the general opinion aboard that such ships, for instance, as 
the United States Revenue Cutter Bear, which was expected at 

41 



42 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Cape Smythe in a few days and was a vessel known to all of us, 
would have been able to steam through the ice easily. The Bear is 
a powerful wooden vessel of the old Scotch whaler type and a very 
good ice ship. This discussion has been settled since, for the Bear 
arrived at a point southwest of Cape Smythe a few days after us, 
was caught in the ice near where the Karluk was caught, and 
like the Karluk was carried helpless, stern foremost, past Cape 
Smythe. She was even less lucky, for the Karluk gave no worry 
beyond some ominous creaking, but the sides of the Bear were 
squeezed so that her decks bulged noticeably.* 

When in our slow grinding movement we finally got opposite 
the northwest tip of the continent at Point Barrow, the pressure 
was relieved. We were not out of the grip of the ice, however, 
and for some hours things looked pretty bad, for as soon as we got 
beyond the Point our ice started off to the northwest at a speed 
about four times as great as before, or about two miles per hour. 

This we had expected. The summer of 1912 when I spent sev- 
eral weeks at Cape Smythe, the whaling bark John and Winthrop 
lay at anchor about a mile from the coast for two or three weeks. 
During most of that time the wind blew from the northeast with a 
force running as high as what sailors call a "strong brefeze"; and 
still the current, coming from the southwest and running against 
the wind, was so strong that not once do I remember seeing the 
ship swinging at her anchor before the wind, as might have been 
expected, but always either broadside to the wind or with her stem 
into the wind. During that same time, however, the condition east 
of Point Barrow had been different. Then the current was running 
with the wind, and when the two currents met in the vicinity of 
the Point they took a course which was a resultant of the motion 
and strength of both, and after joining forces ran off to the north- 
east. The Karluk was now in the tail of this Y. But according 
to theory, the current ought soon to spread and spend itself, and 
we were not a great deal worried. 

* ". . . . The chief work of a polar ship is to push and pry and wedge its 
way in and out among cakes and floes ranging from three to twenty or fifty 
and even up to one hundred and twenty feet thick. A passage cannot be 
smashed through such ice, and nothing remains but to squeeze and twist and 
dodge through it. A hundred Yermaks (the powerful Russian ice breaker) 
merged in one could accomplish nothing in such ice. 

''Many qualities are necessary in a first-class polar ice-fighter. First, there 
must be such a generally rounded model as will rise readily when squeezed, 
and thus escape the death-crush of the ice. Then there must be no projection 
of keel or other part to give the ice an opportunity to get a grip, or to hold 
the ship from rising." — ^"Secrets of Polar Travel," by R. E. Peary, pp. 6-7. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 43 

In this everything went according to expectations. After a few 
hours of northwestward drift, the ice ''slackened out" and we were 
able to advance under our own power. The Karluk took an east- 
erly course and proceeded along the land; keeping six to ten miles 
from the shore, without adventure, until we got east beyond Cape 
Halkett. There was scattered ice everywhere, but none to interfere 
seriously with progress. 

In crossing Harrison Bay east of Cape Halkett we had a small 
adventure. Among the local whalers who have been in these waters 
since 1889 there is a custom of "sailing by the lead." They know 
on every part of the coast how near it is safe to approach, as indi- 
cated by the soundings which are taken continuously by a man 
stationed at the lead. But our officers were new in these seas, 
and were deceived by navigation signs upon which they relied. 
They had not previously sailed in icy waters except such as have 
a change of levels due to tides. In most parts of the north Atlantic 
seaboard a cake of ice that is aground in shallow water has a 
peculiar mushroom-like appearance, for high tide is only a matter 
of an hour or two, and at all other times these cakes are lying 
aground with the water around them much lower than it has 
been at the moment of high tide. In such places an experienced 
navigator can tell by glancing at a cake of ice whether it is afloat 
or aground, and if it is afloat he always knows that his ship has 
plenty of water under her keel. But here in Harrison Bay even 
the grounded cakes presented an appearance of being afloat, for 
there had been no rise or fall of tide to give them undercut edges 
of the kind found in the east. 

I had not been on deck for some time, for no difficulties of navi- 
gation had presented themselves, but when I did go on deck I 
could see from the bridge an island almost directly ahead. To 
any one of local experience this was a sign of imminent danger. 
I asked the man at the lead, who was supposed to take a sounding 
every fifteen minutes, what depth of water we had and he replied 
nine fathoms. I knew this could not be true, for no island would 
be visible from the bridge in Harrison Bay if the water were nine 
fathoms. I realized that the man, thinking actual sounding unnec- 
essary, was merely pretending to sound. Accordingly I asked Cap- 
tain Bartlett to come on deck, but before he had time to quite get 
his bearings, the oceanographer, Murray, came running to us with 
considerable excitement, saying the ship was aground and had 
stopped moving. 

The going aground of a ship under steam, even though it is 



44 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

moving at a speed no greater than six miles an hour, would ordi- 
narily be accompanied by something of a shock. This was not so 
in our case. The bottom here is soft mud, for this is the mouth 
of the Colville River and the depth may not vary as one steams 
directly towards land more than a foot or two to the mile. As we 
were not steaming directly towards land (except for the little delta 
island that lay ahead), the depth may have been changing even 
less than a foot per mile. In this way the keel had commenced 
cutting the mud so gradually and gently that the ship was brought 
to a full stop without anybody but Murray realizing it. He 
noticed it because he was near the stern dredging for marine life 
and his dredge rope had slackened. He had then gone to the 
stern and had seen that the propeller was churning up mud and that 
the ship had stopped. 

We have just said that there is practically no tide in this region. 
Normal tide varies during the twenty-four hours only by some six 
or eight inches. But there is at certain times what we call a 
"storm tide." It seems that when a strong southwest or west wind 
begins to blow in the region of Bering Straits, it produces (through 
barometric variation of pressure, perhaps) a wave that moves east- 
ward and reaches the Colville delta or Herschel Island, possibly 
eight to twelve hours ahead of the storm itself. This rise of water 
that presages a strong sou'wester may sometimes amount to as 
much as five feet, and even in a moderate southwest wind the rise 
may be a foot or two. There is a corresponding fall with or before 
a northeast wind, these two being the directions of the main winds 
in this locality. Now it happened, luckily for us, that a storm 
tide was coming in from the southwest, so that after an hour or 
two aground the water rose enough to float us. As we made our 
way to seaward, this time casting the lead every few minutes and 
steaming carefully, we had to go a mile or more before we got 
an extra foot of water under our keel. 

From the Colville delta eastward the ice kept getting thicker. 
There was a light breeze from the northwest bringing it in slowly 
from abroad. Finally, it became impenetrable. We might now 
have turned the ship to seaward, on the theory commonly held in 
the north Atlantic that the farther away from land you are, the 
better the chance of finding the ice scattered and conditions permit- 
ting navigation. 

There was also the Alaska or Beaufort Sea theory. For years 
I had been listening to the tales of local captains, telling that when 
they first navigated these waters after serving their apprenticeship 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 45 

in the Atlantic they had lost ship after ship by following the 
Atlantic rule of keeping twenty miles away from land. Their ex- 
perience had been that if ships stuck among the Atlantic ice they 
were very likely to get loose again eventually, for in most places 
the current runs south into freer waters where the ice slackens out. 
But north of Alaska they had found conditions diametrically oppo- 
site. There a ship that gets into the ice and starts moving with 
it is not likely ever to get out, for the pack gets tighter instead of 
loosening, and the drift is not southward but northward to the 
more ice-infested regions. I had heard these captains tell that 
over half a hundred ships had been lost by the American whaling 
fleet in the Beaufort Sea before they finally adopted the rule of 
always keeping between the land and the ice. Since then a few 
vessels had been lost, but the proportion had been far less and 
there was always this difference: that formerly when ships were 
far from land the men had great difficulty in making their escape 
by boats or sledges, and all cargoes were invariably lost; while of 
recent years if a ship had been squeezed against the land or sunk 
by pressure near shore, the crews had never been in serious danger. 
Entire cargoes had been saved in some cases, and the more valuable 
parts of them in others. This was so well known that whenever a 
whaler sank near shore without saving the best of her cargo, the 
talk in the whaling fleet was that the size of the insurance policy 
explained the loss. 

So ran the arguments of the local whaler. In reply to them it 
could be said that while these conservative practices were all right 
for merchantmen, a bolder policy might reasonably be expected of 
explorers whose chief concern was neither the saving of cargoes 
nor the collection of insurance policies. One flaw in the whaler 
argument was that the fifty ships lost might not have been lost at 
all but for the timidity through which they had usually been aban- 
doned by their crews. Who knew but they might have been trium- 
phantly extricated if the crews had stayed by them a month or a 
year? We certainly would not abandon the Karluk if she were 
caught in offshore ice. 

Bartlett and I discussed these things fully, and decided for the 
more conservative alternative. We steamed inshore according 
to local practice and followed the edge of the ice until, when it 
prevented further eastward progress, we finally anchored at Cross 
Island. This is one of an interrupted chain of reefs which lie about 
fifteen miles north from the mainland coast of Alaska, separated 
from it by a "lagoon." Between the reefs and the main shore are 



46 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

devious channels through which ships drawing even more water 
than the Karluk can navigate if they have either a good chart or 
expert local pilotage. A boat could be lowered and sent with a 
sounding lead ahead, the Karluk following when the boat had 
signalled sufficient depth of water. By this method we could enter 
the lagoon at Cross Island, proceed thirty or forty miles east and 
come out into the ice again at that point. But of course it was 
always possible that the northwest winds would continue through 
the entire season, and that the freeze-up would come without giv- 
ing us a chance to leave the lagoon till next summer if we once 
entered it. 

We never had on the Karluk any formal consultation of all the 
officers, any organization approaching in character a "General 
Staff." But informally the ship's officers and scientists discussed 
all questions of policy freely and every man among them knew the 
opinions of every other. The only exception to this rule happened 
to be myself. We had taken the ship over from a whaling captain. 
Captain S. F. Cottle, and her internal arrangements were still in 
general those that immemorial experience has shown to be best on 
small ships that make long voyages; the sailors bunked forward 
and had their mess; the rooms of all men of the grade of officer — 
mates, engineers, and in our case the scientific staff — were amid- 
ships, and they had their own mess. The commander alone was 
aft, in quarters that differed from the others not so much in being 
luxurious, though they were roomy, as in being isolated. Partly 
through this isolation, inherited from my predecessors the whaling 
skippers, partly through inclination, I discussed ice navigation little 
except with two men — Bartlett because he was sailing master, and 
Hadley because he was an old friend and a fountain of inexhaust- 
ible northern lore. 

Directly, then, my views of ice navigation were not well known 
to officers and men. Indirectly they were well known, for Hadley 
talked freely with every one and it was understood, and correctly, 
that his views and mine seldom differed materially, being founded 
on a common experience in the same sector of the Arctic. 



As we are now at an important point of the expedition, it is 
best to take a backward glance in order that the situation of the 
moment be made clear. 

When I first learnt from the National Geographic Society and 
the American Museum of Natural History that they would furnish 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 47 

me with enough money to buy a ship, I asked the advice of Captain 
C. T. Pedersen of San Francisco, whom I had long admired as 
the best ice master personally known to me. Some of the associ- 
ates of my earliest years in the North — for instance, Captains 
Leavitt, Tilton, Bodfish and Cottle of the New Bedford and San 
Francisco whaling fleets — had had more experience with the ice 
of the Beaufort Sea, but they had either retired or were by now 
rather old for the vicissitudes that might follow shipwreck. 

Every whaling ship on the Pacific Coast was known to Captain 
Pedersen, and he had advised me, that of them all the Kariuk 
was the soundest and best adapted to our purposes. Though she 
had been fighting Beaufort Sea ice for twenty years she was still 
as strong as when new. This opinion was afterwards amply con- 
firmed by three different ship inspectors engaged to examine her 
and every other available whaling ship from keel to rigging, and 
later when she was overhauled in the naval drydock at Victoria. 
These details are mentioned because one view of later events was 
that they resulted from the Karluk's being "unsound." 

Before purchasing the Kariuk I had engaged Captain Pedersen 
as sailing master, and it was he, acting as my agent, who actually 
took the ship over at San Francisco and, after the expedition be- 
came a Canadian naval enterprise, sailed her to the Victoria naval 
base to be drydocked. Later, during my absence in Europe, Cap- 
tain Pedersen got the unfortunate impression that in order to be 
our skipper he would have to renounce his American citizenship. 
It was for that reason he accepted an offer to go to the Arctic for 
some San Francisco fur traders. That the impression was not 
valid is best shown by the fact that Captain Bartlett, engaged in 
his place, was and remained an American citizen (naturalized — 
he was born in Newfoundland.) 

In most fields men of local experience are the most valuable. 
But with Captain Pedersen gone Captain Bartlett became my 
choice on the ground that his experience with Peary, although in 
another part of the Arctic, made him the best man available. 
Furthermore, at the moment of having to make up my mind I was 
with Admiral and Mrs. Peary, both of whom advised it strongly. 
Peary reminded me that Bartlett was a marvel at handling sailors 
or stowing a ship, and was a man to take the responsibility of 
every detail off your shoulders. 

When Bartlett took charge of the Kariuk I found him every- 
thing that Peary had said. With the reputation he brought with 



48 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

him and his efficiency in managing the affairs of the ship, he won 
the admiration and confidence of everybody. And he obeyed every 
order effectively and without quibbling. 

We have outlined the two main views of ice navigation — ^the 
bold Atlantic policy of "keep away from the land, face the ice and 
take your chances"; the cautious Alaska one of "hug the coast, 
play safe, and if you don't get there this year you may have an- 
other chance next." There were divided opinions aboard, but I 
was in command and the decision and responsibility had to be 
mine. I decided for what a friendly person would call the bolder 
course. But whoever prefers to be truthful rather than kind must 
say I chose the wrong alternative. 



After lying at Cross Island for several hours, discussing theories 
and plans, we hove anchor and steamed deliberately north, away 
from land, threading our way between the ice-cakes and occasion- 
ally ramming them to break a way. "It may be safe, but I don't 
think so/' said Hadley. Every one else seemed delighted with our 
adoption of what they considered the bolder and more sportsman- 
like policy. 

Relentless events were to prove this decision my most serious 
error of the whole expedition. 



CHAPTER V 

THE KARLUK IN FETTERS OF ICE 

IT was several hours after we left Cross Island that the ship came 
quietly to rest against a big floe. As Bartlett came down 
from the masthead he said to me that now the ship was where 
she ought to be and that we would wait here until the ice slackened 
out. That was what it was supposed to do on the theory selected, 
and Bartlett always took the most cheerful view possible of any 
situation. He had already given orders to have the ship tied to 
the cake by an ice anchor, and was in the best of spirits. It was 
Hadley's forebodings that worried me. 

I had not been just then at the masthead with Bartlett where, 
from a hundred-foot vantage, a truer idea of the water between 
the floes can be gained. From the bridge the ice all around looked 
pretty tight and I imagined we must have come to a halt only 
because no open water had been visible ahead. I learned from 
Bartlett later that open water had been visible. He had, how- 
ever, decided that since we were twenty miles from shore this was 
the strategic position in which to wait, again according to the 
adopted theory. 

What we saw from the masthead next morning was not reassur- 
ing. The evening before there had been around us perhaps half 
a mile of open water, but now the ice cakes had gradually edged 
in until our hole was not much more than two hundred yards wide. 
After a survey of the horizon Bartlett ordered the ship freed from 
her moorings and we steamed across the two hundred yards, bunt- 
ing ineffectively against the ice on the other side. After one or two 
bunts, which could not have been very heavy inasmuch as we 
had no room to back away for a good charge, the Karluk was 
tied up again. She never moved of her own volition after. 

During the next day or two the ice kept gradually pressing 
tighter, huddling together more closely. At first the cakes lay flat, 
but gradually the increasing pressure made some of them rise on 
edge. Those next the ship were pressed against her sides till she 
groaned and quivered with the strain. In a day or two nearly 

49 



50 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

every little hole between the ice masses was filled with debris by 
the crushing of the floe edges under pressure, for to the south and 
east, far away and invisible, the land was holding, while from the 
northwest the wind was blowing upon a million pieces of ice stuck 
on edge as upon a million square sails, till each piece strove like a 
full-rigged ship to move before the wind. But none could move 
except by crushing or pressing up on edge the cake that lay in its 
way. The pressure in the aggregate was near to infinite. To the 
square foot it was great enough to break the Karluk or a ship far 
stronger — strong enough to break any ship built. It would have 
crushed us had we not been protected by being in a pocket among 
especially strong adjacent floes. 

Drifting in the pack is a tense game. In the beginning you 
have a certain amount of discretion in choosing your berth. After 
that it is luck upon which the life of your ship depends. And 
luck may change at any time. 

A day or two after we were beset it began to freeze. In four 
or five days young ice had formed in every little open space where 
irregular strong floes did not fit exactly against each other. You 
could walk about anywhere without much danger of breaking 
through. The wind had been northwesterly, and for a time we 
kept drifting eastward until we found ourselves in Camden Bay, 
fifteen or twenty miles offshore. Then the wind changed and we 
began a drift westward. 

By this time I had made up my mind that the Karluk was not 
to move under her own power again, and that we were in for a 
voyage such as that of the Jeannette or the Fram, drifting for years, 
if we had the luck to remain unbroken, eventually coming out some- 
where towards the Atlantic, either we or our wreckage. 

Among the things to be concerned about was that we had on 
board several men who had no business to be there. James Murray 
was one. He was about forty-six, a little older than the age 
preferable for such work, although I have in the Arctic been asso- 
ciated with men of even sixty who did their part and stood the 
work better than many younger men. One of my main concerns 
from the beginning had been oceanography, and Murray's depart- 
ment interested me greatly. Impelled by the double desire of 
keeping him safe and of gaining the greatest possible oceanographi- 
cal information, I had decided to put him in command of the Mary 
Sachs. Our oceanographical equipment was all on the Karluk^ 
and it was to have been the task of Murray and Mackay between 
Nome and Herschel Island to separate it into two divisions. Some 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 51 

was to be left on the Karluk under the charge of Mackay,' while 
Murray was to have taken much of it and transferred it at Herschel 
Island to the Sachs. 

My plan was that, with Murray in command of her, the Sachs 
should act in a measure as a tender, carrying supplies for Dr. 
Anderson towards Coronation Gulf or doing similar errands for 
Bartlett and the Karluk, if that became necessary. She was to 
hold herself ready to help wherever needed. In her spare time, 
which I hoped would be considerable, the Sachs was to cruise 
about in the triangle between Herschel Island, Coronation Gulf 
and Cape Kellett, venturing as far as she cared northwestward into 
the Beaufort Sea, but always keeping in this comparatively ice- 
free district. For although she was seaworthy and staunch in every 
other way, she was incapacitated for too close contact with the 
ice through having two propellers. An unexpected increase of 
cargo at Nome had compelled us to buy the Sachs, in spite 
of the twin-propeller drawback, as the only craft available. This 
increase of cargo was due to my yielding to certain members of 
our staff who thought they would need certain provisions and 
equipment I had planned to dispense with. 

When a ship has a single propeller located amidships, aft, the 
passage of her body through the ice shoves it away and keeps a 
clear path for the propeller. But with the twin screw arrangement 
the propellers stick out at the sides aft in such a way that when 
the ship forces her way through ice she does not make a road 
wide enough, and the propellers will strike the cakes that have slid 
back past her sides. There is a good deal of ice in the spring in the 
southeastern Beaufort Sea, and in some years peculiar wind con- 
ditions will keep it there at all seasons, but often this region in 
which I expected the Sachs to be employed is quite ice-free after 
the early spring is over. 

Besides Murray, McKinlay too should have been elsewhere. If 
he were to be on the Karluk he should, of course, have had with 
him all his magnetic equipment, some of which was now on the 
Alaska. Most inappropriate of all was the presence of the two 
anthropologists, Beuchat and Jenness. They had been taken 
aboard because the Karluk was not only the safest but the swiftest 
conveyance for Herschel Island. Murray was to land there with 
his equipment to wait for the Mary Sachs, and Beuchat and Jenness 
to study the Eskimos, not only for what information they could 
put on record, but also for the value to themselves of becoming 
quickly used to the ways and, if possible, to the language of the 



52 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

natives. Their equipment was naturally most of it aboard the 
Alaska. 

When I realized how close we were to the land in Camden 
Bay I attempted to put Beuchat and Jenness ashore. No attempt 
was made to land Murray because his equipment was too heavy, 
or McKinlay because he had enough magnetic gear with him to be 
useful on the Karluk and too much for easy transportation ashore. 
We got out to the skin-boat, hitched up a team of dogs, put a 
certain amount of equipment into the boats, and detailed two 
Eskimos to accompany them. It is probable that had the party 
left with almost no equipment they could have reached shore, but 
what we tried to have them take proved too much of a load, and 
after getting a mile or two away from the ship they had to return. 
New ice had formed between the old cakes so that the boat could 
not be used as a boat, yet this new ice was not strong enough to 
support it when hauled on a sledge. The sledge kept breaking 
through, and the men also broke through, occasionally getting wet. 
I was sorry that the attempt miscarried, and later events deepened 
the regret. 

After this we stayed quietly aboard the ship while she drifted. 
When the wind turned northeast I knew from long experience, al- 
though we were too far from land to see, that there must be a 
good deal of open water between the ice and the land. It seems 
illogical when you look at the map, but it is a fact, attested by 
universal observation between Point Barrow and Herschel Island, 
that although a west wind there blows off the land it brings the ice 
in to the land; and although an east wind blows off the ice, still 
it commonly carries the ice away from shore enough to leave hand- 
some room for ships to pass east and west along the coast. We 
learned later that this reasoning held for our case, and that while 
we were drifting helplessly westward, the Belvedere and other ships 
were passing along the coast eastward, finding no obstruction. One 
of them saw our smoke although we did not see theirs, the reason 
being that their smoke was imperceptible against the dark land, 
while ours was conspicuous out in the gray of the ice. 

The open water inshore became wider, and we began to see it 
from the masthead. Then it came within three or four miles and 
could be seen from the bridge. And here we were, frozen into a 
westward-drifting floe, while just inshore of us was free and placid 
water through which any ship could travel at will. The only 
comfort was to remember that the Alaska and Sachs, if they had 
stuck to the vicinity of land, would be safe now somewhere in this 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 53 

inside lane, working their way eastward. These reflections corre- 
sponded to the facts as we learned them later. 

It was on the thirteenth of August that we tied up to the ice to 
move no more under our own power, and by the middle of Sep- 
tember we seemed to have stopped moving at all. As we drifted 
west we had been edging nearer to land, until finally we got inside 
the line of Cape Halkett into Harrison Bay, and were set fast 
off the mouth of the Colville River, not far to seaward from 
where we had gone temporarily aground about a month before. 

After we had been motionless for more than a week both 
Bartlett and I came to the opinion that we were likely not to 
move again before the next summer.* If it proved an ordinary 
winter we expected to remain safely embedded in that part of 
the sea ice which is frozen to the land — the floe edge, or the meet- 
ing-place of the landfast ice and the moving sea pack, being to 
seaward of us. We realized, however, that with a very bad gale 
a floe line between the ship and the land might possibly be estab- 
lished. 

I have pointed out before that with east winds the ice on the 
northeast coast of Alaska, contrary to what might be expected, 
will move away from land. This is true only with mild winds and 
is not true with these if they persist a long time. A real gale or 
a strong breeze of long duration will bring the ice back in, and 
cause pressure likely to crush any ship that is ice-embedded. 
But a west wind, although blowing off the land will set the sea 
pack grinding eastward along the edge of the land floe. 

We thought, therefore, that any of the following things might 
happen: First, with a mild east wind the ice would break outside 
the Karluk and move westward offshore, leaving her unmoved and 
unconcerned. Second, the east wind might persist for a long time 
or develop into a strong gale; in which case the ice that had tem- 
porarily gone abroad would come in against the shore ice, crump- 
ling it up into pressure-ridges, crushing the ship or failing to crush 
her exactly according to luck. Third, a light west wind might 
break the ice outside, leaving her again unaffected; or. Fourth, if it 
were a strong gale it might carry her to the eastward, grinding 
along in the pack, leaving her afloat or sinking her, again accord- 
ing to fortune. What seemed clear to both Bartlett and me was 
that nothing could be done except to make preparations for taking 
the men safely ashore in case of wreck; and we thought that if 

* See "Last Voyage of the Karluk," by R. A. Bartlett and Ralph T. Hale, 
Boston, 1916, p. 35 fit. 



54 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

any party were to go ashore temporarily they could always get 
back to the Karlvk, for they would find her either just where they 
left her or to the east. It did not occur to us that she could be 
carried off, unbroken, far to the westward. 

The consultations between Bartlett and me resulted in the con- 
clusion that a hunting party should be sent ashore. We had an 
abundance of provisions, but no fresh meat. There were some 
seals to be had around the ship, but the men wanted "variety" in 
fresh meat and especially they wanted the delectable meat of the 
caribou. In earlier years I had hunted caribou on the mainland 
just east of the Colville River and I knew from experience that 
it was good game country. 

A logical thing might seem to have been to send the Eskimos 
to hunt, for the popular supposition is that you cannot be an 
Eskimo without being a good hunter. The fact is, however, that 
in a large part of Alaska caribou hunting is a lost art, for caribou 
have been nearly or quite extinct from portions of that territory 
for more than a generation. Our two Point Hope men had never 
seen a caribou in their lives, though they were good seal and walrus 
hunters. Kataktovik had hunted caribou a little but confessed 
he did not know much about it. Kurraluk was a good hunter, 
for he was of the appropriate temperament. Although he belonged 
to the Kuvugmiut of Kotzebue Sound who have, since the disap- 
pearance of the caribou from that region, become mainly a fishing 
and sealing people, he had spent enough time in the interior with 
other tribes to become proficient in caribou hunting. But he was 
a stranger to this district. I was aware that his wife, Keruk, 
knew every creek and cove in it, for I had first met her on my 
caribou hunts in the Colville delta in 1909. But we could not 
afford to let her ashore, for she was our only seamstress and the 
most important person aboard. We had hundreds of reindeer 
skins and other skin material that needed to be made up into 
warm clothing. It had been my purpose to engage several seam- 
stresses either at Herschel Island or Cape Bathurst, but our stick- 
ing fast in the ice had settled all that. Now all our garments 
had to be made by this one Eskimo woman and by those of our 
staff or crew who might be able to learn from her. Several of 
the men eventually acquired a degree of proficiency. 

Captain Bartlett volunteered to lead a party ashore, but he 
was under the handicap of not knowing the country, whereas I 
had the advantage of having hunted through it and of knowing 
the places where native villages might be found. This was im- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 55 

portant, for it was part of my desire to communicate with Eskimos 
and try to get two or three families to move aboard for the sake 
of the seamstresses. One of the customary village sites, that at 
the mouth of the Itkilik River, is usually well stocked with fish, 
and I had the further purpose of purchasing there and possibly set- 
ting our own fishermen to work. 

It was part of the plan of going ashore to take Jenness along 
to give him a chance to begin his study of the Eskimos, while 
McConnell and Wilkins were chosen because they were among the 
most adaptable of the men and I thought would readily take to 
the life of arctic hunters. I had already formed an opinion of 
Wilkins, which was continually strengthened, that he would be 
able to adapt himself to anything. As for McConnell, he was an 
exception to the general rule of my men. The rest were inclined 
to follow storybook ideas, in assuming that the Eskimos only 
could hunt big sea game successfully. They devoted themselves to 
their fowling-pieces when ducks were flying over, or to ski-jumping 
and playing other games around the ship, while the Eskimos did 
the useful work of securing seals for man and dog food. McCon- 
nell hadn't had any luck so far, but he had at least avoided the 
games and the fowling-pieces and had gone out trying to get 
seals. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE KARLUK DISAPPEARS 

WHEN our hunting party left the ship we expected to be ab- 
sent from it only a week or two.* We had already made 
up our minds as to which were the best dogs, and we took 
instead of them two teams of untried and presumably poor dogs, with 
the idea of testing these out. We had ten or eleven good new sledges 
and chose two old and comparatively poor ones, believing we had 
better not expose the sledges intended for ice exploration to chance 
injury. Wilkins, whose work and pleasure alike was photography, 
left all his equipment on the ship except the lightest camera. I had a 
specially good rifle, presented to me by the Harvard Travelers 
Club of Boston, which I had promised to use on all important trips. 
I left this rifle aboard and took an ordinary one. Two or three 
weeks earlier, when the creaking of the ship had led me to think 
we might have to leave her at any moment, I had put thirteen hun- 
dred dollars of paper money into my hip pocket so as not to 
forget it in an emergency. Now I took this out of my pocket and 
put it into the strong box in my cabin, along with more than a 
hundred pounds in weight of silver and gold money which we carried 
for trade with the Alaska and Herschel Island Eskimos. 

It was about ten miles ashore. We did not go the whole dis- 
tance the first day (September 20), partly because we did not 
start till the afternoon, partly because there was no hurry, and in a 
measure because the young ice between the old ice floes was still 
treacherous and had to be dealt with carefully. In addition to 
the white men I had taken along the Point Hope Eskimos, Asat- 
siak and Pauyurak. 

Camp was made in two tents, three men in one, and myself 
with the two Eskimos in the other. I had made such camps 
hundreds of times so that to me it was scarcely an event, but it 
interested me because it gave me my first idea of how my traveling 
companions were going to take to what to them was a new sort 
of life. Here I quote from a magazine article written by Wilkins: 

*See "Last Voyage of the Karluk," p. 36. 

.^6 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 57 

The first night on the ice was a new experience. We were shown 
how to pitch the tent and set out the floor skins and sleeping-bags in the 
Eskimo manner. According to correct methods, approved by Mr. Stef- 
ansson, we took off all our clothes to sleep naked in our sleeping-bags 
of reindeer skins. We did not question the advisability of this, apart 
from the natural disinclination to undress in a temperature of 20° of 
frost, for we had been accustomed normally to undress when going to 
bed. We three novices slept in a tent together, while Mr. Stefansson 
and the Eskimos occupied the other. He came in, tucked up our sleep- 
ing bags, and gave us advice about keeping them folded about our shoul- 
ders. This we scarcely heeded, thinking that we knew how it should be 
done. But soon, even before we had finished comparing notes for the 
day, we felt the cold air creeping round our ears and spreading down 
our bags. A strong breeze had sprung up and it filtered through the 
tent. We twisted and turned and complained of the cold and thought 
we had proved one of the Commander's theories to be a fallacy. It was 
all very well, we thought, for Eskimos to sleep naked if they wanted to, 
but we were more tenderly reared and needed more protection. It was 
only the dread of greater cold that prevented us from getting up, put- 
ting on our clothes and going to bed fully dressed. We didn't for a 
moment realize that it was our own incompetence that caused us the 
discomfort. But after a few days' perseverance we learned to fold our 
sleeping-bags around our necks and were generally comfortable, and we 
eventually got to the point where we no longer wanted to get into our 
bags with all our clothes on." 

The next day we got ashore, not indeed on the mainland, but on 
Amauliktok, the westernmost of the Jones Islands, a chain that 
lies about four miles off the coast. Inside this island chain we 
found the ice young and rotten, so that crossing to the mainland 
was not practicable and we camped for the night, using for cooking 
and warmth our sheet-iron stove, and driftwood which in this 
district is abundant. 

The name of this sandspit is typical in the sense that an Eskimo 
place name is frequently found, when translated literally into 
English, to be the equivalent not of a word but rather of a sen- 
tence of ours. Thus amauliktok means "he killed a Pacific eider." 
If the meaning had been "he killed a King eider" it would have 
been "Kingaliktok" which (still more literally translated) means 
"he killed one with a big nose." 

During the evening I decided it would be desirable to have some 
additional things from the ship. I had given Captain Bartlett 
directions that a few days after my leaving he was to send an- 
other party ashore in the direction of Cape Halkett, and it now 



58 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

occurred to me to modify these instructions so as to bring the men 
ashore sooner. Accordingly, McConnell and one of the Eskimos 
were chosen to go with a light sled the following morning out to 
fetch the required gear and carry the supplementary instructions. 

We were all up early. During breakfast I impressed certain 
elementary principles on McConnell, urging him also, although he 
was in command, to follow the advice of the Eskimo if any emer- 
gency were to arise. After breakfast while the sledge was being 
hitched I took a walk along the beach, climbing upon a small knoll 
to get a view to seaward. 

What I saw was very disquieting. A strong wind had been 
blowing during the night and the temperature was warmer. To 
seaward the darkness and blotchiness of the clouds showed that 
the ice was broken where yesterday it had been continuous, with 
water reflected in the sky, and clouds of dark vapor rising from 
the leads. It was evidently unsafe to send McConnell on his er- 
rand, and during the next two or three hours conditions got so 
much worse that it dawned on me we were now going to have a 
test of what would happen to the Karluk if the ice broke up. 

Now the gale increased until it became the worst storm for 
that season which I have ever seen in the North, and this opinion 
I found was confirmed by the whalers who, unknown to us, were 
then having their own tussle with the ice some distance to the east. 
We built out of driftwood a sort of observation tower and occa- 
sionally got glimpses of the Karluk, but most of the time she was 
hidden by snow squalls and drifting clouds of mist. In the after- 
noon I was scarcely willing to believe my own eyes when I saw 
her moving to the eastward — against the wind, against the current, 
and against any theory which I could formulate except the one that 
she had broken loose and was proceeding under steam. The 
glimpses of her, too, were so fleeting and she was so veiled by 
fog that I was not even sure that it might not have been a cake 
of ice that I mistook for her. What I was sure of was that the 
thing was moving eastward. That was clear because it passed 
behind nearer ice cakes which I knew to be stationary. 

This was a night of high tension, although free from that deepest 
of uncomfortable feelings that what was happening could have 
been prevented. For a month now I had been committed, if not 
reconciled, to the attitude that so far as anything we could do was 
concerned the Karluk was at the mercy of the ordinary forces of 
nature and of the laws of chance, at least until the coming spring. 

On the morrow the question of what to do could scarcely trouble 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 59 

us, for there was but one road open. Or rather no road, for the 
wind had broken the strong ice offshore, the warm temperature 
had rotted the young ice of the lagoon^ and we were marooned 
on the island. Of course this would be only a question of a few 
days, for at this time of year a warm spell must be temporary. 

So it proved. In two or three days the lagoon ice hardened 
between us and the land, although to the westward it was still 
too weak for travel. When it cleared to seaward the Karluk was 
gone; we did not know whither, or whether she still survived. 
There was no sense in searching for her by sled, for there was 
vastly more water than ice, so we went on to the mainland. 

That night we camped by a platform cache made by my own 
party in the fall of 1908 when we had killed thirteen caribou at this 
point.* The next day I hunted alone, leaving the men in camp 
because the weather was thick and uncertain and I did not care to 
take the chance of their getting lost in the open. All day the walk 
was without promise, but towards evening I saw a single bull 
caribou. He was traveling too fast for me, however, for though 
I gradually got nearer to him, darkness overtook me and I had to 
suspend the chase. 

As it happened, I did not resume it next morning. The frost 
had sharpened and it appeared possible to start west along the 
coast, for I thought that to be the best chance of overtaking the 
Karluk. It was possible she might have freed herself and steamed 
eastward, but the chances were that the ice holding her had followed 
the coast towards Barrow. 

At first we had to travel very cautiously, for the ice proved 
treacherous on account of a light blanket of snow which kept.it 
from freezing hard. On the second evening on the west side of 
the; bay at a point southeast of Halkett we had a rather narrow 
escape from a serious mishap, for in the attempt to make shore 
that evening we had traveled into the night, and found ourselves 
on ice that owing to its extreme thinness and mushiness had upon it 
black patches of damp snow. It was partly a matter of luck that 
we did make shore without losing sledges or lives. 

The next day we were traveling along in the general direction 
of Halkett when one of the Eskimos said he could smell smoke. 
None of the rest of us could, but I was willing to rely on the 
Eskimo, for my experience is that while in eyesight, hearing and 
every other natural faculty he is about the same as the rest of 
us, he does seem to excel in the sense of smell. Whether this is 

* See "My Life With the Eskimo," p. 64. 



60 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

from some anatomical or deep physiological cause I do not know, 
or whether it results merely from his having lived his whole life 
in an unvitiated atmosphere with the sense of smell consequently 
unperverted. In the direction from which the smoke must come, 
if it was smoke, land was about eight miles away. I climbed on 
one of the sledges, examined the coast with my field glasses, and 
saw what afterwards proved to be a house, but was now so low and 
far away that it could not be identified. We traveled towards it, 
however, and after five or six miles its character as a human habi- 
tation became clear. 

It was the dwelling of a single Eskimo family of the Colville 
River people. They were able to tell us about several other fam- 
ilies, most of them old acquaintances of mine, that were scattered 
in various places in the vicinity. Through previous residence in 
the country I knew the Eskimo names not only of the places I had 
visited, but also of many which I had heard discussed and which 
had been described to me by the drawing of crude maps. Had I 
been a stranger to the topography and to the Eskimo names I 
should have been unable to form a clear idea of where all these 
people were living, even with the aid of the most modern published 
maps and with a thorough command of the Eskimo language; for 
besides being inaccurate, most maps carry only the names of 
European explorers, patrons of exploration, or friends of the map- 
makers. The places and names shown on such maps are unidenti- 
fiable through any information available from Eskimos, and com- 
monly even from resident whites. To have full value to the trav- 
eler an Arctic map should carry Eskimo names, either exclusively 
or as supplements to the others. 

I must pay a tribute to the adaptability of my companions. 
On the Karluk all of them had disliked the seal meat prepared for 
us by the ship's cook, who insisted on putting it through various 
elaborate processes which were supposed to deodorize it and take 
away its peculiar taste. I had imagined my own dislike for seal 
meat cooked this way to be a peculiarity due to long acquaintance 
with the undisguised article. The men all ate it on shipboard 
with so good a grace that I really thought they liked it. But 
when we killed the first seal after leaving the ship, cut its meat into 
pieces, dropped it into cold water, brought it to a boil and served it 
underdone on a platter in the true Eskimo style, every one of my 
three companions commented on its great superiority over seal 
meat as cooked on the ship. Wilkins, who was brought up in 
Australia and was used to the eating of fresh mutton, said it tasted 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 61 

very much like mutton and almost as good. That seal's fat does 
taste like fresh mutton fat is the opinion of all white men I know 
who are familiar with the taste of both. The lean, however, while 
good in its way, has a flavor quite distinct from that of mutton. 

There may be a more fundamental reason why a man used to an 
elaborate menu, as were all my present companions, is easier to 
please than one who has never eaten any but a few simple things. 
Since many of the modern theories in human dietetics are based on 
experiments with rats or guinea pigs, analogizing from dogs to 
men in this field should be no less interesting or instructive. I 
should like to cite some of our experiences in feeding dogs with 
foods that were strange to them. 

In 1908 on my way down the Mackenzie River I bought a dog 
team which had been brought up on a diet of fresh-water fish sup- 
plemented with moose, caribou, rabbits and possibly ptarmigan. 
When we got to the seacoast we had trouble to get these dogs to 
eat seal meat. I remember some sailors who told me at the time 
that they did not blame the dogs. These were men who had been 
in the country twenty years without ever tasting seal and who 
naturally knew it was bad. But it was not that seal was funda- 
mentally less agreeable to dogs; they were merely not used to it. 
It occurred to me that the dogs were refusing to eat because of the 
odor of the meat rather than because of the taste. For one thing, 
they did not put it in their mouths; for another, a dog probably 
does not have a keen sense of taste, as we may infer from his habit 
of gulping his food, but his keenness of smell is well known. I 
now provided seal meat that was more or less decayed, thinking 
that while fresh caribou and fresh seal smelled different, the putre- 
faction odor in either case would be about the same and would 
overpower the native smell. This worked at once. And I have 
never found a dog used to putrid meat of one kind that would not 
eat greedily putrid meat of any other kind. By gradually giving 
the dogs fresher and fresher seal they were easily broken to it. 

But we had more serious trouble with the same team the follow- 
ing spring when we tried to feed them on ducks. These ducks were 
fresh-killed, hence had their native odor. All the team refused 
at first, and some went for more than a week without tasting. I 
determined experimentally, however, that through hanging in the 
sun for three or four days, or until it began to smell putrid, a duck 
became acceptable to any of the dogs. 



62 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Some years later I bought a dog in Coronation Gulf which had 
been brought up mainly on seal. On the north coast of Alaska 
the following spring we were for a few days in a position where 
we could get only geese for food. This dog refused for more than 
a week to taste goose, and I was never able to force him to it. 
We had to give up the experiment because of lack of time. As 
noted below in the case of the wolf meat, it is even possible the 
dog might have preferred to die of starvation though goose meat was 
before him. 

At another time we had a dog brought up on the Booth Islands, 
near Cape Parry. Inland on Horton River this dog, which had 
been used to seal meat only, refused at first to eat caribou and 
had to be broken to it through hunger, for this was in the winter 
time when it was not practicable to get the meat to decay. 

In Banks Island the summer of 1914 we undertook to teach the 
dogs to eat wolf. This experiment was conducted "under laboratory 
conditions." The dogs were kept tied in one place and supplied 
each day with a dish of fresh water. A piece of wolf meat was 
placed every day beside the dish and allowed to remain all that 
day. This meat was then destroyed, for we were afraid it might 
begin to putrefy and we wanted to see how long the team would 
go hungry before eating meat that was quite fresh and still retained 
the full wolf odor. During the second week five of the six dogs 
gave in one by one, but at the end of the fourteenth day the last 
dog had not yet touched it. He was the oldest of the team, which 
was doubtless why he was the most conservative. He had been 
the fattest of the lot at the beginning of the experiment and at the 
end of the second week he was practically a skeleton. 

At this point I had to stop the test, for we had to begin travel- 
ing and needed the strength of this dog along with that of the 
others. It is quite possible that he might have chosen to starve. 
I have found by experience as well as inquiry that a man fasting 
does not get any hungrier after the second, some say the third, day, 
and long before the fourteenth day the craving for food loses its 
sharpest edge. 

This is a synopsis of only some of my experiments and experi- 
ences with the food tastes of dogs, from which I have drawn the 
following generalized conclusions: 

Dogs brought up around ships and used to foraging in refuse- 
piles and eating highly-seasoned food will eat any food offered to 
them. It seems therefore that a dog used to many sorts does not 
mind eating one sort more. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 63 

Dogs more than a year old brought up on a diet restricted to 
two or three articles always refuse at first when an entirely new 
food is offered. They base this refusal on the sense of smell, and if 
the meat is putrid enough so that the putrefaction smell completely 
hides the native smell then the dog has no objection. In other 
words, all rotten meats smell substantially alike and are therefore 
recognized as a familiar diet, while any new kind of fresh meat 
offends through its strange smell. 

Hunters and natives who have noticed that dogs will not eat 
wolf or fox meat commonly remark that dogs object to cannibal- 
ism. I find that the objection of a dog to wolf meat is no stronger 
than his objection to duck meat or caribou meat, provided the duck 
or caribou is an absolutely new meat in the experience of the dog. 
Once induced to eat wolf, a dog soon becomes as fond of it as 
of any other meat. 

We have found that the food prejudice is stronger the older the 
dog, and we believe that with dogs of the same age the prejudice 
of the female against new food is stronger than that of the male. 
This seems to extend the commonly believed-in principle of the 
greater conservatism of human females down into the lower 
animals. 

It would be exceedingly interesting, it seems to me, to make 
further experiments in the food tastes of dogs along the following 
lines : 

Pups of the same litter should be selected, one to be fed for 
two years on mutton and water, another on fish and water, a third 
on beef, and a fourth perhaps on a vegetarian diet. It would 
make the experiment more interesting if a male and a female 
could be used for each sort of diet. Judging from our experiments, 
it seems probable that at the end of two years the mutton-fed 
dog would refuse both beef and fish, and the fish-fed dog would 
refuse both mutton and beef. I believe it would also be found that 
the abhorrence for the new diet would be stronger with the female in 
each pair than with the male. 

It is well known that some Eskimo groups eat either no vege- 
table food at all or practically none. But in all parts where we 
have been, except in Coronation Gulf, they are fond of the berry 
known in Alaska as the "salmon berry" and elsewhere as the cloud- 
berry {Rubus chamaemorus Linn.). We were astonished, especially 
my Alaska Eskimo companions, when we found that some of the 
Coronation Gulf Eskimos lived among an abundance of these berries 
and had never thought of tasting them. Since no taboo existed my 



64 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Eskimo companions tried to introduce the fashion of eating them. 
They found no dijB&culty in getting children to try them, except that 
in some cases the mothers were offended by the attempt. The men 
also were commonly willing to eat them, and I do not recall that even 
one man refused, but I should say that fully half the women posi- 
tively refused even to taste the salmon berry during the summer we 
spent with them. This is really a rather good fruit and I have no 
doubt that by now most or all of the people are eating it, but our 
observation that first year seemed to indicate clearly enough the 
conservatism of the women. We observed it in many other things — 
for instance, smoking. Although nearly all western Eskimo women 
use tobacco and although there have been tobacco-using women 
on our ships when we have come in contact with the eastern Eskimos, 
we have found the men readier than the women to learn to 
smoke. 

I have had much experience with the food prejudice of white men 
in connection with introducing them to a diet of meat only. The laws 
of that prejudice as deduced from dogs have applied to the men 
exactly. The older the man the more probable it is that he will 
object to trying a new kind of food and to abandoning the foods he 
is used to. A dog brought up on a ship and used to a variety in diet 
would take readily to a new diet. Similarly, "well brought-up" 
men, used in their homes to a variety of foods both domestic and 
imported, take readily to any new thing — such, for instance, as seal 
meat. But men "poorly brought-up" and used only to half a dozen 
or so articles in their regular diet, are generally reluctant to try 
a new food unless it has been represented to them in advance as a 
luxury or as especially delicious. Of course the situation here is 
not so simple as it is with dogs. For one thing, the man of "laborer" 
type has a feeling of being degraded when he is compelled to eat 
the food of "savages," while a man of intellectual type is appealed 
to by a mild flavor of adventure in experimenting with the food 
of a strange people. 

It was so with my companions now that we were among real 
Eskimos. They took readily to Eskimo cooking and seemed to con- 
sider it great sport. Doughnuts fried in seal oil were sampled as 
an adventure, and their deliciousness surprised them. So with 
every new thing they had a chance to taste. This is one of the 
reasons why "well brought-up" young men are the best material for 
polar explorers, or indeed for any type of "roughing it," except the 
sort to which the "poorly brought-up" man is native. Generalizing 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 65 

still more: an educated man of diversified experience has the mental 
equipment to meet "hardship;" the ignorant are fitted to meet easily 
only those "hardships" that are native to them. It goes without 
saying that, like all rules, this has its exceptions. 



CHAPTER VII 

NEWS AND PLANS 

WE had noticed in certain places along the coast sledge tracks 
going west ahead of us. The Eskimos said that the trav- 
elers were a party consisting of one white man and three 
Eskimos who had left a whaler caught by the ice and compelled to 
winter to the eastward, and were on their way to Point Barrow. 

Group after group of Eskimos happened in our way along the 
coast, and we picked up a good deal of information about conditions 
to the east as the party traveling ahead dropped a word here and 
another there. But it was not until we finally got to Cape Smythe 
that everything was pieced together. 

The Belvedere, under Captain Cottle, carrying a hundred tons 
of freight for our expedition, had been able to get within about 
seventy-five miles of Herschel Island, where she had been frozen in 
a mile from the coast. About fifteen miles farther west the Polar 
Bear was safe a few hundred yards from the beach. But the Elvira 
had been wrecked. This was not surprising for the Elvira was one 
of the vessels considered before the purchase of the Karluk and the 
reports of my inspectors had shown that she was thoroughly un- 
sound. Even in the ice- free waters of the Pacific they would not 
believe her good for more than two or three years. She had now 
been nipped in the ice, and according to the terms of the insurance 
policy, which was a heavy one, she had been promptly abandoned. 
Whalers from another vessel later boarded her and saved her catch 
of fur and a good many other things of value. Thus the event was 
auspicious to everybody except possibly to the marine insurance 
people at San Francisco. 

But most pertinent to us was the information that the Alaska 
and the Mary Sachs were both safe at Collinson Point. They, 
in common with all other ships on the coast, had followed the 
Alaska practice of going between the land and the ice. Although 
they had not been able to get as far east as we had hoped, they 
were at least safe, and we had their supplies to go on with the 
following year. 

66 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 67 

It was especially unfortunate for us that to the Karluk, believed 
safest of all our ships, we had entrusted the most valued part of our 
cargo. One of the main things I wanted to do that next spring on 
the sledge journey over the Beaufort Sea was to take soundings, 
and most of our sounding equipment was on the Karluk. The 
Sachs and Alaska had chronometers for their own use, but the 
ones intended for sledge exploration were on the Karluk. The men 
of adventurous disposition and special qualifications whom I had 
meant for my companions on exploratory journeys were also there, 
along with the good dogs purchased in Nome, and the sledges and 
sledge material which could not be duplicated even at Cape Smythe 
and even in Mr. Brower's extensive stock. 

And of the Karluk with all these invaluable things on board we 
got no certain news. On coming to an Eskimo encampment at 
Cooper's Island about twenty miles east of Cape Smythe we learned 
that a ship had been there in the ice, three or four miles offshore, 
for several days.* She had been so near that the Eskimos could 
see the ropes in her rigging, and had theirs been an ordinary party 
they would have gone out to her. But they were some decrepit 
old people who had been left behind by their relatives traveling 
eastward who were coming back later to pick them up. These 
Eskimos had been expecting somebody to come ashore from the 
ship. When nobody came and they never saw any smoke, they 
concluded she was deserted. It had been a strong temptation to 
them to go aboard for plunder, and it was a matter of great regret 
to them that no young men had been on hand for the purpose. One 
of these old Eskimos had seen every whaling ship in these waters, 
and the Karluk had been a familiar sight to him for fifteen years. 
He was prompt and clear on the point that this was she. After 
she had been within observation for two or three days a fog and 
wind came up. When the fog lifted she was gone. 

A day or two later a ship had been seen in the ice off Point 
Barrow. She was said to have been about ten miles from shore 
and the natives did not agree as to her characteristics. One Eskimo 
said she was a schooner; in that case certainly not the Karluk. 
By the light of later events I now know that it must have been the 
Karluk, though at that time I was inclined to think it was the Elvira. 
Report at this stage was that the Elvira had been abandoned before 
she sank, so that it seemed she might have drifted westward, jammed 
in the ice and held up by it, a thing which occurs in shipwrecks 
of a certain type. 

*See "Last Voyage of the Karluk," p. 48. 



68 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Mr. Brewer's welcome when we arrived at Barrow was no less 
friendly because he regretted our being back so soon under such 
circumstances. He is an optimist by temperament, as every pioneer 
should be, and his cheerfulness and friendliness helped to reconcile 
me to the situation. By now I was completely over the idea that 
the expedition was going to be uninteresting because of being too 
easy, or monotonous because of having some one to do everything 
for me. 

After a day or two at Cape Smythe we set about preparing the 
best sort of outfit we could. My men on leaving the Karluk had 
been improperly dressed and this was now remedied through skins 
and other things supplied us from Mr. Brower's stores and through 
the assistance of the Eskimo seamstresses of the village. The one 
thing we wanted most, however, was good sledges, for I knew that 
at Collinson Point there would not be more than one or two of the 
heavy type. It takes an entirely different sled to encounter the 
rough and shifting ice on the Beaufort Sea from what is needed 
for work on shore. It had been my supposition that the Alaska 
and the Mary Sachs would in winter confine their operations to 
the land or to the comparatively level ice near land and would, 
therefore, need sledges weighing from seventy-five to a hundred 
and seventy-five pounds, and they had, accordingly, been equipped 
with light ones mainly. The kind that I preferred for rough ice 
work would weigh two hundred to two hundred and seventy- five 
pounds. With a sledge of that weight Mr. Brower could not supply 
me, but he had light material for making just one sled and he set 
about doing that. He made it himself and it was, therefore, as 
well made as was possible with the materials. It eventually gave 
us as good service as any sled I ever had of its weight, though it 
never could take the place of any one of the heavy sledges carried 
by the Karluk. 

Although it is three hundred miles north of the arctic circle 
and within sight of the most northerly tip of Alaska, Cape Smythe 
had at that time three mails going to the outside world in winter. 
The first of these was leaving in November, and with it I sent out 
to the Government at Ottawa a report of the proceedings and mis- 
haps of the expedition up to that point and a program for future 
work. This letter is summarized as follows: 

I told the Minister of Naval Service that I considered it very 
doubtful whether the Karluk as a ship would survive the winter. 
I could not be sure in what part of the ocean she was, although in- 
clined to the belief that she was to the westward. While the pro- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 69 

gram of the expedition was necessarily curtailed, I did not consider 
that the lives of any of the crew were in danger,* for if the ship were 
crushed during the winter the breaking would be so slow that they 
would have plenty of time to put off on the ice all stores and equip- 
ment necessary for a journey ashore. I placed special faith in the 
skin-boat and pointed out that the greatest difficulty of the men 
of the crushed Jeannette in getting ashore was due to the fact that 
the boats they had to haul over the ice were very heavy and very 
fragile,** while our skin-boat was less than one-quarter as heavy 
and many times as strong, and in every way better adapted to the 
use of men retreating towards land from a ship broken in the. pack. 
If the ship were lost in the dead of winter it would probably be 
safe to leave without the skin-boat. In other words, there were 
two safe methods of retreat: one carrying the boat along, and the 
other abandoning it and going directly ashore with sledges, provid- 
ing the break-up came when frost was severe enough for temporary 
breaks in the thick old ice to be quickly mended by the formation 
of young ice. Should the ship survive the winter and be broken up 
the following summer, the danger to the lives of the crew would be 
considerably increased. The ice then is more mobile, stores placed 
upon it are more likely to be lost, and the journey ashore would 
involve frequent launchings of the boat into water and pulling it 
out again for crossing ice floes to the next stretch of open water. 

Regarding the prospects of the Karluk in general, then, I gave 
it as my opinion that she might or might not survive, but that the 
crew would be certain to get safely ashore if the wreck took place 
in winter, and would have a good chance of getting ashore even if 
it took place the coming summer. I mentioned that the eastern 
part of the north coast of Asia is well supplied with food, for it is 
a settled country with hospitable and well-provisioned reindeer- 
herding or walrus-hunting natives and white traders scattered every- 
where. If the Karluk were broken to the west of Barrow her crew 
had this hospitable coast for retreat. 

As a prospectus of the coming season I reported the safety of 
the Alaska and Mary Sachs at Collinson Point. After outfitting at 
Cape Smythe I would proceed eastward by sledge along the coast. 
Alfred Hopson, a boy of sixteen or seventeen brought up at Cape 

* Bartlett, aboard the Karluk, had the same feeling. "I felt sure, come 
what might, we would get back in safety to civilization," he wrote two 
years later, in recording his feelings while drifting in the ice. ("Last Voyage 
of the Karluk," p. 50.) 

** "Voyage of the Jeannette," by Emma de Long, Boston, 1883. See 
numerous references. 



70 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Smythe, with a good command both of Eskimo and English, had 
been engaged as interpreter for Jenness. I would leave Jenness with 
Hopson among the Eskimos near Cape Halkett where he would 
put in the winter acquiring a familiarity with the language and 
lives of the Eskimos. With the rest of the party I would pro- 
ceed east to Collinson Point. 

As to the expedition's southern section the plan had been that 
it was to spend the present winter in Coronation Gulf and survey 
in the spring the land in that vicinity. This was now impossible, 
since Coronation Gulf is seven hundred miles east from where they 
lay at Collinson Point. I thought it unwise and unprofitable to 
keep an expedition as large as that of the Alaska idle a whole sea- 
son simply because they were not in the particular district of my 
original plan. I would therefore make out a program for them on 
the following basis: 

The Mackenzie delta was interesting geographically and impor- 
tant in its commercial possibilities. And it was accessible from 
Collinson Point, being only two hundred miles east. I had myself 
made two journeys the full 2,000-mile length of the Athabasca and 
Mackenzie River system from Edmonton to the Arctic Ocean, and 
they had impressed on me the tremendous potentialities of this 
system as a waterway, should commerce for any reason develop. 
I had journeyed up the Yukon by steamer and had found that the 
steamers grounded on sandbars frequently, although the pilotage 
was expert, the channels were well buoyed, and the ships drew only 
four and a half feet of water. On the Mackenzie, with no buoys 
for the channels, with pilotage not so expert and with a boat drawing 
six -and a half feet of water, we had navigated without difficulty 
an approximate distance of thirteen hundred miles — from Smith 
Rapids on the Slave River, which is the only serious obstacle to 
navigation on the system, across Slave Lake and down the Macken- 
zie River to the head of the delta. Through the delta I had passed 
several times, commonly in boats of shallow draft, but once with 
a boat drawing about five feet. If we could survey the various 
channels of the delta and find that any had a depth of five feet or 
more all the way to the ocean, the knowledge might be of great 
importance. It would be so not only to the Hudson's Bay Company 
and other traders already in the quarter, but to the public in gen- 
eral should a strike of gold or oil or other commercial development 
ever bring people into that valley as they had been brought sud- 
denly some years earlier into the Yukon valley. 

So I gave it as my intention to go from Point Barrow myself 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 71 

to the Mackenzie delta to purchase dogs, hire Eskimos, buy gasoline 
launches if they were available, and otherwise make all preparations 
for extensive work in the delta by our topographers, Chipman and 
Cox, the following spring. The preliminary task of surveying the 
coast between the International Boundary and the mouth of the 
Mackenzie might be finished in March, so that work on the Macken- 
zie channels could be begun by sled before the river broke open, and 
continued by boat, including soundings, from about the end of May 
until July when the surveyors would proceed to Herschel Island 
to rejoin the Alaska on her way eastward towards Coronation Gulf. 

But the main item of the instructions of the Government to the 
expedition had been that we were to explore the ocean north of 
Alaska and west of the already known Canadian islands to ascer- 
tain the presence or absence of new lands, and to do soundings and 
carry on other geographic and oceanographic work. I said that 
it seemed to me this part of our program could still be carried for- 
ward. Supplies to reinforce the outfits of the Mary Sachs and 
Alaska could be purchased either from the Belvedere or Polar Bear, 
or, should they be short as they might be, from the two traders, 
"Duffy" O'Connor and Martin Andreasen who were wintering on 
the coast between Collinson Point and Herschel Island. These sup- 
plies together with those on the Alaska and Mary Sachs would be 
adequate for carrying out next summer the Alaska's program of 
going east to Coronation Gulf, and the survey work for the Macken- 
zie in the spring. They would also provide a small party for a 
journey north over the ice to carry out our main geographic program. 

The report then gave attention to what the expedition's pro- 
gram would be if next year the Karluk turned up safe, and what it 
would be if we had to carry on without her. In the latter event 
we would especially need some scientific instruments, and these I 
asked to have shipped to Herschel Island via Edmonton and the 
Mackenzie River, which is the earliest and safest route. Other 
important but less essential supplies not obtainable from whalers or 
traders I asked to have sent in by ship through Bering Straits to 
Herschel Island. 

Summing up the report: 

(1) With the resources we had or could get we intended to do 
as much work this year as we could. 

(2) This year and the years following, whether the Karluk 
was lost or not, the expedition intended to try to carry on according 
to original plans, both in the Coronation Gulf district where de- 
tailed scientific studies would be pursued, and in the Beaufort Sea 



72 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and Parry archipelago where the main object was geographic dis- 
covery — the traversing and study of unexplored seas, the discovery 
and mapping of unknown lands, and the further survey of islands 
already partly known. 

This report, mailed from Barrow in November, reached the De- 
partment of Naval Service in February Independent reports and 
requisitions had also reached them from the station of Anderson's 
southern division at Collinson Point, which at the time they sent 
them had not heard (except through unreliable Eskimo rumors) 
from the Karluk or from me since the news of us they got when they 
followed us east around Barrow last August. The Naval Service 
also received a telegram from me sent later with the midwinter 
mail from Fort Macpherson. The Department replied to all these 
communications by sending the following telegram to the telegraph 
office nearest Herschel Island, distant about one month's rapid 
journey by dog sled: 

Ottawa, 28th February, 1914. 
"Y. Stefansson, 

Care of Superintendent J. D. Moodie, 
Eoyal Northwest Mounted Police, 
Dawson, Yukon. 
"Your reports' from Barrow and wire from Macpherson received. 
Your decision to pursue expedition as per orginal plans is approved. 
Trust you will soon have news of Karluk. 

"(Signed) G. J. DESBARATS." 

This was a satisfactory message, especially the sentence: "Your 
decision to pursue expedition as per original plan is approved." 

Although this telegram was justified by the outcome, and now 
seems the only logical one that could have been sent, it represented 
at the time a decision by the Department of Naval Service which 
showed a realization of arctic problems, and a confidence in our 
prognosis of how they could be met under altered conditions not 
exactly reflected in the press. For while the Department were de- 
ciding to approve my plan of going ahead, the newspapers were 
saying that the entire complement of the Karluk had perished, that 
my plans were unsound, and that the expedition had failed. Edi- 
tors especially, who presumably had been through high school, were 
asserting that all the knowledge ever gained in the Arctic was not 
worth the sacrifice of the life of one young Canadian. 

I am one of those who think the fighting of the Great War worth 
while not so much to attain what was attained as to prevent what 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 73 

has been prevented. But I never could see how any one can extol 
the sacrifice of a million lives for political progress who condemns 
the sacrifice of a dozen lives for scientific progress. For the ad- 
vance of science is but the advance of truth, and ^The truth shall 
make you free." 

As this book is going through the press I have received a letter 
from one of the scientific staff of our expedition who saw several 
of his companions die in the North, and then went home to serve 
four years on the western front to see men die by the thousand. 
Meantime some of us, his former colleagues, were carrying on the 
northern work. He is writing about a recent visit to him of one 
of our other men who remained in the North two years longer 
before going home to serve the last two years of the war. He says: 
''It was indeed a pleasure to learn at first hand of the work the 
expedition accomplished . . . and no less to hear of the men with 
whom I had had the honor to associate. My only regret has been, 
and always will be, that I was denied the honor of a more active 
association in these results. My enthusiasm for the study of polar 
problems has increased rather than diminished, and I should have 
been delighted to join Wilkins in his Antarctic venture * . . . but 
unfortunately the war has left me a legacy in the shape of a weak 
leg as the result of wounds, which incapacitates me for arctic field 
work." ** 

Thus men will always differ in their estimates, partly because of 
their nearness to or remoteness from the objective they judge; the 
soldier does not always agree with the editor. The battle for the 
advancement of knowledge is being nobly fought where doctors 
submit to malignant inoculations to test the efficacy of a serum, 
where experimenters breathe poisonous fumes through thousands 
of tests to perfect a process in economic chemistry, where astron- 
omers spend sleepless nights photographing the spectra of the re- 
mote stars. And the astronomer is not necessarily the least of 
these because it is least obvious just how his discoveries are to be 
applied to the problems of food and raiment. 

Nor are the principles established by the arctic explorer neces- 
sarily worthless because no one may see their commercial applica- 
tion, nor the lands he discovers valueless because corn will not 
thrive there and water frontages cannot be subdivided into city 
lots with prospect of immediate sale. Their time will come. "The 

*The Cope Antarctic Expedition of which our Wilkins became second- 
in-command after the end of the war. They sailed south in 1920. 

** Letter to the author from William Laird McKinlay, dated May 27, 1920. 



74 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Far North" is a shifting term. The Romans considered the middle 
of France too frigid ever to support a high civihzation. Fifty years 
ago the Arctic was supposed to stretch a long arm down to where 
now stands Winnipeg with its 200,000 people, and it was debated 
if potatoes could be successfully cultivated in that part of Sas- 
katchewan which is now known to be nearly if not quite the world's 
greatest wheat country. So the 'Tar North" will continue retreat- 
ing till the Arctic that is unpeopled with our race shall have shrunk 
far within the technical arctic circle as laid down by the mathe- 
matical astronomer and geodesist. The lands commonly supposed 
to be covered with ice are even now covered with grass; the "eter- 
nal silence" of the North exists only in books; the "vast arctic 
deserts where no living thing can flourish" are the abode of fat 
herds of indigenous grazing animals winter and summer — as you 
will see if you read on in this book. 

The "Far West" is gone. But in the North is a greater frontier 
than the West ever was, stretching across Canada and across Si- 
beria. The commercial value of the remotest arctic islands w^ill be 
seen ere we die who now are young. 

To those of broad outlook it needs no conmiercial development 
to justify polar exploration, or any honest attempt to widen the 
bounds of knowledge. Though we hope for commercial develop- 
ments from the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913 to 1918, we 
need not await them for justification. More than a dozen volumes 
of scientific results are partly written (some of them are printed), 
and charts of new lands have been published as a result of the 
decision represented by the telegraphic order issued at Ottawa when 
to those of defeatist temperament everything looked black: 

"Pursue expedition as per original plan." 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE JOURNEY TO COLLINSON POINT 

WHILE at Barrow this time I observed that the average 
temperature of the Eskimo houses was lower than it had 
been with the Eskimos I had lived with farther east. Mr. 
Brower told me that when he first came to Barrow (I think about 
1881) the Eskimo houses had been much warmer than now. The 
reasons for the difference were mainly two. The people had gradu- 
ally changed their more comfortable and sanitary earth-and-wood 
houses for the nowadays more fashionable and flimsy frame build- 
ings of imported lumber; and fuel had grown scarcer and more 
expensive. 

Mr. Brower and others also gave information that the age of matur- 
ity of Eskimo women is on the average higher now than it was ten or 
twenty years ago. I made no connection at the time between the fact 
of the colder houses and the fact of the deferred maturity of the people 
who dwell in them, and so lost the invaluable opportunity of discussing 
the conclusion I later arrived at with Mr. Brower, who is an accurate 
observer, a keen reasoner and has had unequalled opportunities to study 
the Eskimos during their transition from their native mode of life 
which was unaltered when he settled among them to the present half- 
understood and often misapplied "civilization." 

It has been generally supposed that among the peoples of the earth 
the age of maturity comes earliest in the tropics and increases gradually 
as one goes northward through the temperate and eventually to the 
edge of the polar zone. It has been presumed that a similar condition 
would be found in going south from the equator towards the southern 
pole. 

If the age of maturity increases with fair regularity as one goes 
north through Europe from Sicily to Lapland, it would seem there is 
a direct connection with the decrease in temperature, and this assump- 
tion has accordingly been generally made. Tables, the sources of which 
are not always unassailable, have been published to show this direct con- 
nection between the age of maturity and the temperature. 

But in North America this rule, if it be a rule, has a striking excep- 
tion. It is not rare among Eskimo women that they have their first 
child at the age of twelve, and children born before the mothers were 
eleven have been reported in places where the age of the mother can be 

75 



76 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

in no doubt because of the fact that her birth had been recorded by a 
resident missionary. 

Cases of this sort were first called to my attention by Dr. H. R. 
Marsh,* a medical missionary of the Presbyterian Church, who had al- 
ready been long resident at Barrow when I first came there in 1908. It is 
only where missionaries are stationed that reliable records are obtainable, 
for the Eskimos themselves do not take any interest in their own age 
or the age of their children as measured in years, and it is seldom 
possible to know how old a person is unless his birth can be checked up 
by comparison with some known visit of an explorer, whaling vessel, 
or some event of that sort. It is easy, however, among uncivilized 
Eskimos, at least, to get information accurate in every respect but that 
of age about the coming to maturity of girls, for they have no such 
taboo as we on the publishing of that sort of information. This taboo, 
like all our other social prohibitions, is soon picked up from us when 
Eskimos become "civilized." 

Since the early maturity of Eskimo girls was first pointed out to me 
by Dr. Marsh, I have had a chance to observe a considerable number 
of Eskimos through a period of twelve years, and in many cases when 
it has been possible to check up the age correctly, I have found the 
time of maturity to be about as given by him for Point Barrow. But 
I have a general impression that in the places where I have been the 
age of maturity is now getting higher gradually. (As shown later, 
and mentioned above, I connect this with the poorer clothing and colder 
houses of the present as compared with previous generations.) 

When I first learned of this low age of maturity among people 
living in a cold climate, I supposed I had found evidence for thinking 
that racial difference, or possibly kind of food and manner of life, had 
much more importance than previously considered in determining the 
age of maturity, and that the general correspondence, if there is such, 
between the increasing age of maturity and decreasing temperature as 
one goes north through Europe would be found to be partly a matter 
of accident. It is a curious thing that during twelve years of associa- 
tion with the Eskimos during which time I have spoken and written 
a good deal about their manner of life, it never occurred to me until 
during the writing of this book that their rapid development is strictly 
in accord with the supposition that the hotter the environment the earlier 
the maturity. 

For to all intents and purposes the typical Eskimo in the country 
known to me lives under tropical or subtropical conditions (or at 
least did so until the last few years). The winter of 1906-1907 I recorded 
the estimate that the average temperature within doors of the Eskimo 
house in which I lived at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, was a 

* For an account of Dr. Marsh and his activities, see the various references 
to him in the index to ''My Life With the Eskimo." 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 77 

good deal above 80° F. and frequently rose to 90° F.* From tlie point 
of view of those who spent most of the winter indoors in that house, it 
was a matter of no consequence that the temperature was perhaps forty 
or fifty degrees below zero outdoors, when the outdoor air seldom came in 
contact with their bodies. And even when these people went out, the 
cold air did not have a chance to come in contact with them except 
for the limited area of the face. When an Eskimo is well dressed, his 
two layers of fur clothing imprison the body heat so effectively that 
the air in actual contact with his skin is always at the temperature of a 
tropical summer. It is true, therefore, that while an Eskimo is indoors 
his entire body is exposed to a local climate as warm as that of Sicily, 
and when he is outdoors he carries that climate about with him inside 
of his clothes and applicable to ninety or ninety-five per cent, of his 
body area. 

If it be supposed that early maturity in such a country as Sicily is 
due to the direct effect of heat upon the body, in some such way as 
when heat brings early maturity to flies cultivated under experimental 
conditions, then we see that on that theory the Eskimo has every reason 
to mature about as early as the Sicilian. The same conclusion follows 
if we consider that early maturity is due to the acceleration of the proc- 
esses of metabolism due to the strain upon the body in adjusting itself 
to excessive heat. When an Eskimo comes into such a house as the one 
in which I lived in 1906-1907, he strips off all clothing immediately upon 
entering, except his knee breeches, and sits naked from the waist up and 
from the knees down. Cooking is continually going on during the day 
and the house is so hot that great streams of perspiration run down 
the face and body of every inhabitant and are being continually mopped 
up with handfuls of moss or of excelsior, or, according to later custom, 
with bath towels; and there is drinking of cup after cup of ice water. 
At night the temperature of the house will be only ten or fifteen degrees 
lower; or if it drops more, people will cover up with fur robes instead 
of sleeping nearly uncovered, thus keeping up the heat of the air that- 
is in actual contact with the body. We have, therefore, produced locally 
within doors the same conditions which may be supposed to accelerate 
the metabolism of a dweller under the tropical sun. 

The effect of the over-heated houses is more direct among the Eskimos 
upon the women than upon the men, for they remain indoors a larger 
part of the winter. So far as the warmth of the body out-of-doors is 

*Bartlett estimates the temperature within doors in winter of the houses 
of the Eskimos and Eskimo-hke people of Northeast Siberia at 100° F. See 
"Last Voyage of the Karluk," p. 211. To judge by his account these Sibe- 
rians do not ventilate their houses as well as the North Alaskan and Macken- 
zie Eskimos used to do, although his description of the foulness of the air 
is only a little more lurid than one that would be true of some of the 
Barrow Eskimo houses to-day that are cold because they are chilled through 
the thin walls by conduction and because fuel is scarce. In such houses 
every crevice by which cold air might get in is stuffed up with something. 
Not infrequently the keyhole is plugged with chewing-gum. 



78 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

concerned, the conditions are even among the sexes, for they are equally 
warmly clad. 

If an Eskimo ever becomes uncomfortably cold, it is likely to be on 
a rainy or foggy day in summer or autumn when he is wearing his old 
clothes so as to save the better ones from injury through wetting. 
Among the Copper Eskimos of the vicinity of Coronation Gulf consid- 
erable discomfort is suffered occasionally from cold, especially in the 
fall. But these people who do not usually count above six have no ac- 
curate idea (in years) of the ages of their children that are nearing 
maturity and we have no reliable data on this head from them as yet. 
They are, therefore, left out of this discussion. 

In countries like Europe where the clothing, whether it is of cotton 
or of wool, is generally porous, forming a poor protection against the 
weather and especially against a cold wind, and where the houses are 
similarly badly adapted for shutting out cold (like the modem ones at 
Barrow), and where temperature within doors is controlled by fires that, 
for one reason or another, cannot be uniformly maintained, it is gen- 
erally true that the farther north you go the colder the air that actually 
reaches the bodies of the people and has an effect upon their life proc- 
esses. In North America among the Indians, as one goes north from 
Mexico towards the Arctic Sea, similar conditions generally prevail, and 
the farther north the Indian the colder the air that is in contact with 
his body throughout the year. For the Indians (other than the Eskimos 
or Eskimo-Indians) like Europeans, generally wear clothing ill-suited 
for keeping the body warm. The most northerly of the Athabasca In- 
dians, for instance, appear to suffer a great deal from cold. 

One winter I traveled about for several months with the Dog-Rib 
and Yellow Knife Indians.* I found they were so poorly clad that dur- 
ing the day when out of doors they had to be continually moving, for if 
they stopped for even half an hour at a time they became so chilled that 
their hands became numb. These Indians are really in continual fear 
a large part of the winter of ever ceasing from active motion when out 
of doors. In the evenings their wigwams are cheerful with a roaring 
fire but by no means comfortable, for while your face is almost scorched 
with the heat of the flames, your back has hoar-frost forming upon it. 
At night the Indians go to sleep under their blankets, covering up their 
heads and shivering ail night so the blankets shake. It is, therefore, in 
accordance with the theory that the age of maturity increases with the 
increased cold of the air applied directly to the body, to suppose that the 
statements of Hudson's Bay traders and others in the North are reliable 
when they say that the common age of maturity of Indian girls is as 
high as, or higher than, that of north European whites. 

But when you go north from the Slavey and Dog-Rib Indians to the 
Eskimo country the conditions suddenly change. You now come in con- 

*See various references to Slavey, Dog-Rib, Hare and other northern 
Indians in "My Life With the Eskimo." 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 79 

tact with a people who have (or had, till they became "civilized") a sys- 
tem of living almost perfectly adapted to a cold climate, while the north- 
em Indians have a system almost unbelievably ill-adapted to the condi- 
tions in which they live. Here, accordingly, you have a sudden shift 
back to a sub-tropical early age of maturity which at first seems to be a 
direct contradiction of the accepted theory, but which when properly 
understood is in accordance with it* 

Spring work was commenced by sending Jenness, Wilkins and the 
Eskimo, Asatsiak, to precede us to a fishing lake back of Cape 
Halkett where they were to attempt catching fish in quantity for 
dog- feed, so that later on we might use them for our journey from 
there east towards Collinson Point. A few days later the rest of 
us followed, except Pauyurak who wanted to leave our service. He 
told me that when he had worked for white men before he had 
usually stayed in the ship most of the winter and when he traveled 
he had been in the habit of riding, but he found in traveling with 
us not only that he didn't stay in one place very long but that 
when he traveled he had to run. He seemed to consider this latter 
partly a trial and partly an indignity. That being his frame of 
mind, I was very glad to have him remain behind at Cape Smythe. 

At Cape Halkett a little later we lost Asatsiak. Somebody in 
that community picked him out for a desirable son-in-law. That 
seemed to meet his ideas and we had to forget that he had promised 
to work for us for three years. As I have had occasion to remark 
before, the attitude of an Eskimo towards a contract seems to be 
about the same as the attitude of a sovereign state towards a 
treaty, — it is an agreement to be kept if it suits you to keep it and 
to be abrogated whenever you feel that your interests are better 
served that way. 

The defection of these two Eskimos did not hamper us especially 
as we had picked up a good traveling companion in Angutitsiak, 
a Point Hope native whom we found at Barrow. He served the 
expedition well for three years, first with me on this trip and later 
with Dr. Anderson in Coronation Gulf. 

We left Jenness and his interpreter, young Alfred Hopson, with 
the Eskimos of Cape Halkett and proceeded eastward. How this 
crossing of Harrison Bay impressed McConnell is shown by an 
interview given the New York Times several years later (Septem- 
ber 18, 1915). His enthusiasm and worshipful attitude in the inter- 
view are to be explained (unless they are due to the reporter) by 

* See The Journal of the American Medical Association, Sept. 4, 1920, 
"Temperature Factor in Determining the Age of Maturity Among the Eski- 
mos," by V. Stefansson. 



80 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the fact that after having "perished amid a wilderness of ice/' in 
the newspaper announcements of a year earlier, I had now just 
come dramatically to life in the front-page headlines. Apropos 
of my resuscitation an interviewer had been sent to McConnell, 
who then was in New York, with result in part as follows: 

"... Those down here who thought he was dead did not know 
him. . . . You see the Stefansson they had met at banquets and 
functions became another man entirely when he left civilization be- 
hind him. I know because I traveled with him all one winter. He 
is at home in the Arctic. . . . The secret of his long so-called impos- 
sible trips is that he knows how to take care of his men and dogs. 
His sense of direction seems almost intuitive. I have never seen him 
become confused as to direction. On one occasion I followed his 
lead through a blinding snowstorm for hours. . . . The last two 
hours were made in darkness yet at the finish he was not over a 
hundred yards off the trail. I say 'off the trail' but in fact there 
was no trail. 

"At another time I followed him across a bay for forty miles. 
He made his own trail and at the end of the forty miles we came to 
. . . the small sandspit (he was aiming for)." 

These things seemed extraordinary to McConnell, and Wilkins 
has told me that they appeared equally extraordinary to him, but 
they were really very simple. To begin with, I knew the country. 
It is a region where only three kinds of wind blow. The strongest 
is from the southwest, the next strongest is from the northeast, and 
the third is from east-northeast. Occasionally there is a little wind 
from some other point but in general the snowdrifts are deposited 
by one of these three winds. Commonly you know as a matter of 
recent history which of the three winds it was that blew last, but 
in any event an examination of the ground will easily show which 
it was. On the same principles as are employed by stratigraphic 
geologists, you can tell by size and other characteristics which driftg 
were made by the strongest winds, and furthermore you can tell the 
direction of the wind by the fact that the drift is lowest and narrow- 
est to windward and gets higher and wider to leeward before finally 
dropping down abruptly to the general level. After as many years 
as- 1 have had of arctic travel it would be strange if I could not 
tell at a glance, where only three kinds of drift are involved 
which was the S.W. drift, which the N.E. and which the E.N.E. 
And if it was dark so I couldn't see I could tell the shapes of the 
drifts by stopping and feeling them carefully with my feet, or if 
necessary by dropping on all fours, crawling about and examining 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 81 

them with the hands. Then, having determined either the N.E. 
or the S.W. drifts, the whole remaining problem is to cross every 
such drift at an angle of about forty-five degrees, ignoring all the 
other drifts. By doing this you are really traveling the compass 
course S.E., which takes you from our starting point on the west 
side of Harrison Bay towards a gap about four miles wide between 
the mainland and the Jones Islands on the east edge of the Bay. 
I knew if I erred by going too much to the right I should run the 
danger of getting tangled in the grassy mudflats of the Colville River 
where the traveling is very bad on account of the soft snow in the 
tall grass. So I made sure that if I did err it should be by going too 
much to the left, in which case again I would strike the rough ice 
outside of the Jones Islands. 

This was a two days' journey made largely in thick weather, 
and there was such chance for error that it was largely a matter of 
luck, although the reasoning and method were correct, which made 
me strike, as McConnell has said, within a few hundred yards of 
the desired place. However, I did not strike quite as close as he 
thought. I had noted some time before we got across the bay 
certain knobs of rough ice which indicated that I was a little too 
far to seaward and so I turned slightly to the right. 

There was also the performance which impressed McConnell and 
Wilkins (and which Wilkins has since written about) of announcing 
to them in advance, a day or two after this, when we were in thick 
weather and when the coast appeared to them to be absolutely fea- 
tureless, that in a mile or so we would arrive at a platform cache 
which I had seen some years before. This was merely a Sherlock 
Holmes trick, for the coast was not featureless but was merely 
featureless to their inexperienced observation. I had been up and 
down it so often that I knew every cut-bank, and my last journey 
had been only a year before so that the topography was still vivid. 
To forecast your arrival at an ancient Eskimo camp a mile after 
passing a creek mouth is no more wonderful than knowing that a 
fifteen-minute walk will take you to the Flatiron Building from 
the Washington Arch. 

When we got as far us the mouth of the Shagavanaktok River 
we had a series of trivial though rather instructive adventures. We 
came upon a sled trail, running to seaward and followed it ashore to 
a camp the characteristics of which told me two things: One was 
that it belonged to my former traveling companion, Natkusiak,* 

*See ''Life With the Eskimo." Natkusiak was with me most of the four 
years covered by that book. 



82 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and the other that there must be the carcass of a whale to seaward. 
Evidently the sled trail led to this carcass. We were beginning 
to run short of dog-feed, so the next day I sent McConnell and 
Angutitsiak with a sled to discover the whale and get a load of meat. 

During that day I decided to walk out to Cross Island, for 
we were now abreast of it, thinking that if the Karluk were to the 
east instead of to the west Bartlett might have sent a message ashore 
and left a communication there for me. It was about a fifteen- 
mile walk to the island. When I got there I found no message from 
the Karluk and no sign of human visits during the present winter. 

This was the time of year when the days are shortest. In a 
certain sense there are no days at all around Christmas, for the 
sun is well below the horizon and the light at noon even on a clear 
day is only a bright twilight. It had been cloudy all along and 
began to snow on the way home. Therefore I had before me in 
finding camp one of the interesting problems which continually 
confront the arctic hunter and the solution of which is as absorbing 
to me as that of a problem in chess. 

Any Eskimo or experienced white man is careful to have his 
camp near some landmark, preferably one of a linear nature. In 
other words, pitching your camp near the foot of a conspicuous 
round hill would be of little service in finding your way home, for 
whenever the weather became thick or the night dark you would be 
unable to see the hill from any distance. The landmark of most 
use is a long, fairly straight ridge or a cut-bank conspicuous enough 
and characteristic enough not to be overlooked or mistaken for 
another. Our present camp, which was the Eskimo camp from 
which its owners were temporarily absent, was at a cut-bank on 
the eastern edge of a river delta. To head straight for it I had to 
go approximately south. But the first rule, if you want to find 
camp in darkness or thick weather, is not to try making a straight 
shot towards it. For if you do and miss, you will not know to which 
side to turn to look for it. In my present case I was north of a 
camp located on an east and west coast line. It would not be wise 
for me, I knew, to set a course too far west, for if I did I should 
get myself tangled among the delta islands and mudflats of the 
river. Clearly, the thing to do was to make sure that I was going to 
strike the land too far east, for not being a delta that land would 
presumably be of simpler topography and I would merely have to 
follow the shoreline west until I came to the camp. In fact, I 
thought I knew the coast, for I had passed it several times although 
I had never stopped there to hunt. On the present occasion, al- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 83 

though we had slept a night at the camp I had not seen the topog- 
raphy, for we had arrived after dark and I had started for Cross 
Island before daylight in the morning. But I imagined that the 
camp was on a round point with lowland lying to the east and 
rolling hills commencing two or three miles back. 

With confidence in this analysis, I took the wind at a certain 
angle on my cheek, made sure occasionally with the luminous dial 
of my pocket compass that the wind was not shifting, and walked 
steadily so as to strike the land, as I thought, a mile or two east 
of the camp. I knew my rate of walking and timed myself care- 
fully. After awhile I began to worry a little, for I had walked 
about an hour longer than I expected without striking any land. 
It was now about nine o'clock at night with thick clouds and light 
snowfall so that it was not possible to see even a dark object on the 
snow background more than five or eight yards away. 

At the end of this superfluous hour of walking I had one of the 
surprises of my life, for I stumbled against a heap of stones. Now 
it happens that years ago my former commander, Leffingwell, wrote 
a geological paper in which he said that stones were absent from 
the coast west of Flaxman Island, and that in a published review 
of that paper I have pointed out that while stones are nowhere 
numerous, I have in repeated journeys along that coast observed 
a few. I had seen Leffingwell since and found we then agreed that 
there were a few stones on the coast. But here I was stumbling 
over a heap of boulders that could not be called "a few" by any 
reasonable stretch of the vocabulary. I sat down on one of them 
to think. 

It first occurred to me that I might have struck to the west of 
the camp instead of east of it and that I might now really be up in 
the valley of the Shagavanaktok River, having by accident entered 
the delta by a straight channel without striking any of the islands. 
I thought this over carefully and decided that it could not be. 
Daylight had lasted on my backward road until I was only eight or 
nine miles from camp and I had then set a course to strike two 
miles east of it and I considered it absurd that I could make an 
error of more than two miles in a distance of eight. The conclusion 
was that I must be east of the camp. But this seemed also absurd, 
for observations in previous years had told me that to the east of 
the camp the land was continuous, with a low coastline and flat land 
back of it for two or three miles. And here I had stumbled against 
the face of a cut-bank covered with boulders that seemed like a 
moraine. At first sight it would seem that this reasoning had led 



84 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

to the absurd conclusion that I was neither east nor west of the 
camp, but the answer had to be that my observation of the land on 
passing it in previous years must have been wrong and that instead 
of it being a low land gradually rising towards the interior, it 
must be in reality a practically landlocked bay with a narrow en- 
trance which I had never noticed. I knew that this entrance could 
not be wide, for had it been I would have noticed it in passing the 
coast, which I had done both by boat in summer and by sled in 
winter. 

Having decided that I must have discovered a new bay lying east 
of the camp, I also had to conclude that the bay might be of any 
conceivable contour and that the only safe thing would be to follow 
all of the coast line. This I set about doing. For awhile the bank 
was conspicuous and I could see the loom of it even in the darkness, 
but after awhile it became more sloping and lower and I had to be 
continually stooping and picking up handfuls of snow or scratching 
the ground to find whether I was on the grassy land or on the snow- 
covered ice. I knew I could not be more than about three miles 
from camp in a straight line, but I did not know, except very gen- 
erally, which direction this was, so there was nothing for it but to 
keep following every indentation of the bay. It took several hours, 
and I arrived home at one o'clock in the morning, having been on 
my feet about seventeen hours. 

I was, of course, not tired. When one is in good training almost 
indefinite walking leaves you still ready to walk farther, and I was 
in an especially good humor through having solved one of the most 
interesting problems of the sort I had ever met. It seemed to me 
an opportune moment to use it as an example for impressing a 
valuable lesson upon my companions and I accordingly gave them 
an extended lecture on the subject. It was only later it dawned on 
me that they might not have been much interested at the time, and 
it must be admitted that no one is likely to be in a very receptive 
frame of mind who has sat up waiting for hours expecting somebody 
to come home, and then fallen asleep to be awakened in the middle 
of the night. It seems that on an earlier occasion I had impressed 
on them what is really one of the first principles of arctic technique: 
that if ever at night they came to the conclusion they were lost, 
they should stop quietly where they were and wait for daylight. 
One of them now wanted to know why I didn't follow my own rule 
and sleep out all night. This was a point of view that had never 
occurred to me, for it had never struck me that I was lost. 

This incident shows that it takes years of experience with any 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 85 

peculiar environment such as a desert, the ocean, or the Arctic, be- 
fore one can judge correctly between the merely spectacular and the 
really difficult. Here were two keen young men who had been lost 
in admiration over the elementary trick of using snowdrifts as a com- 
pass in crossing a forty-mile bay, and who could see nothing inter- 
esting or particularly worth explaining in the comparatively credit- 
able feat of finding a camp in darkness under the conditions I have 
just described. 

In my whole arctic experience there is nothing of which I am 
more tempted to brag than of these eight or nine hours during which 
I groped ahead amid falling and drifting snow through dark- 
ness, never doubting that every step brought me nearer to a camp 
that I could not see till I was within five yards of it. Every now 
and then I had to dig deep pits with my hunting knife to see if 
I was on land or ice. I never dared try to follow the shoreline 
exactly for I never knew when I should come to the camp and 
pass it unnoticed. So that no matter which way the coast line 
trended I always zigzagged it, groping my way inland and digging 
till I found grass or soil, then groping my way seaward till my dig- 
ging revealed ice. I knew the camp was not far away if I only 
could walk straight to it, but I also knew that though I was almost 
sure to be able to figure out its direction^ I never could figure out 
its exact location. Each time that impatience whispered to me, 
"Make a shot at it, you might hit it," discretion answered, "Yes, but 
if you miss once you never will know if camp lies to the right or to 
the left, ahead of you or behind. Now you know it is ahead 
and that you will inevitably find it at last. You will never for- 
give yourself if you allow yourself to get lost when you needn't." 

And so I kept on, groping, zigzagging, digging, now to find earth 
and now to find sea, and I got home. But the trouble is that when I 
want to brag about it nobody seems to see the importance of the 
achievement as I do. 

After my lecture and its comparative failure, we seemed about 
to commence a discussion of whether I had or had not been lost 
when McConnell remarked that he and the Eskimo had been unable 
to discover the whale carcass. He confided to me later that the 
Eskimo had not seemed very anxious to find it. They had followed 
the trail for awhile and when McConnell could no longer see it he 
had assumed that Angutitsiak could, for he then retained his child- 
like faith in the infallibility in such matters of the Eskimos. But 
when after awhile he asked the Eskimo where the trail was, he 
answered that he had lost it long ago but was hoping to find it again. 



86 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

The hope haphazardly to find again a trail which you have long 
ago lost may show merely a sanguine temperament, but I think 
McConnell was right in interpreting it to mean that Angutitsiak 
thought chopping whale meat for dog-feed would be pretty hard 
work. 

The next day I sent McConnell and Angutitsiak again to look 
for the whale, never dreaming that they might not find it, and went 
out for a walk in another direction. On the way home I struck 
for the place where I thought the whale would be and found it, with 
plenty of evidence of Eskimos having been there to get meat several 
weeks before. I also found a white fox dead in a trap, but I saw 
no trace of McConnell and the Eskimo. On coming home in the 
evening I found that they had miraculously missed that whale a 
second time. This amused me almost as much as it annoyed. But 
two days seemed enough time to lose, so we proceeded next morning 
towards Collinson Point, feeling fairly certain that we would fall 
in with Eskimos who could give us dog-feed. This proved to be 
correct, and the Eskimos also gave us news of interest. Natkusiak, 
I learned, had gone east to Collinson Point to pay a visit to our 
ships there, but a pile of seal and whale meat belonging to him had 
been cached in the neighborhood of my informant's house. The 
next day we picked up all we needed from this cache and proceeded 
to Flaxman Island. 

Here we found Leffingwell in the house which had been built in 
1907 from the wreck of the Duchess of Bedford. He had already 
spent several winters there, although he had made two visits to his 
parents in California, passing each time a winter in the south. The 
house had been added to and was rather palatial for those latitudes. 
He had an extensive library in several languages, one of his rooms 
was furnished with a roll-top desk, and altogether the equipment 
ranged from the sumptuous almost to the effete. 

But I must make clear immediately that while the outfit was 
elaborate it was in the main a relic of the times when he had been 
a tenderfoot and his tastes had not yet been turned towards sim- 
plicity by his experience in the North. The first year he was there 
he had "lived well," as the saying goes. He had no end of variety 
of jams and marmalades, and cereals and food of all sorts. At the 
end of the year he complained on arrival in San Francisco (or at 
least the reporters quoted him so) that he had had a very hard time. 
He had been several weeks without butter and so many more weeks 
without something else. How his tastes had altered in the seven 
years since then was best shown when McConnell volunteered to 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 87 

cook breakfast the next morning and suggested that the breakfast 
might consist af oatmeal mush and hot cakes. This struck Lef- 
fingwell as an extraordinary suggestion and the genuineness of his 
surprise was clear from the tone in which he said, "Mush and hot 
cakes! If you have mush what's the use of hot cakes, and if you 
have hot cakes what's the use of mush?" 

This principle is the essence of dietetics in the North. The 
simplicity of living on few foods contributes not a little to the charm 
of the North which one does not appreciate fully till he comes back 
to the complex menus of civilization. I would not go so far as 
to say that you could decide which was better, mush or hot cakes, 
and then live forever on the one or the other. But if instead of one 
of these you select some complete food, such as fat caribou meat for 
instance, then it contributes considerably to your satisfaction in 
life from every point of view, including that of enjoyment of your 
meals, to have for every meal indefinitely caribou meat and nothing 
else. I am aware that this sounds like a joke to the ordinary reader, 
but it is truth to all who have tried it. I have never had experience 
with a man who did not protest in advance that he would be sure 
to get deadly tired of a diet of nothing but caribou meat, but I have 
never found a man who in actual practice did get tired of it. They 
invariably like it better the longer they are confined to it. This, 
of course, is no unique experience in the world. There are probably 
no people on earth so fond of rice as those Chinese who get little 
else. And if it be true that there are Scotchmen who live mainly on 
oatmeal, then it is certain that those Scotchmen will prefer oatmeal 
to almost any food. 

Leffingwell was able to tell us a good deal about the Alaska and 
Sachs, making more explicit the information we had received at Cape 
Smythe. Everything was going well. The men were living at Col- 
linson Point, but Charles Thomsen and his family of the Sachs 
were at a trapping camp six or eight miles this side. Most of the 
men would be at the camp except Dr. Anderson who would prob- 
ably not be at home, for he had expected to take mail to Herschel 
Island for the Mounted Police to carry to Dawson in January. 

That everything was so well with our people was largely thanks 
to Leffingwell. It was one of the best pieces of luck of the expedi- 
tion that he happened to be coming to the Arctic in 1913 and 
accepted my invitation to be our guest on the Sachs. Chipman, 
whom I had placed in charge of her to take her to Herschel Island 
where she was to be handed over to Murray, was new in the coun- 
try, though in every other respect a good man for his task. Al- 



88 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

though an old hand in Bering Sea, Captain Bernard had never been 
on the north coast of Alaska. It was just here that Leffingwell's 
local knowledge, of the kind the Sachs needed, was fuller than 
that of any other man. He has himself made the only good map 
of this part of Alaska.* This map shows the soundings by which 
vessels of light draught can follow the devious channels inside the 
''lagoon," while protected from the sea pack by the line of reefs and 
islands that fence most of the coast from the Colville to Flaxman 
Island. What was more, Lefiingwell himself, first with the Anglo- 
American Polar Expedition schooner Duchess of Bedford in 1906 
and later with his own private yacht Argo, had navigated these 
channels and was therefore an ideal pilot. So the Sachs, though 
she had been in some tight places with the ice between Point Hope 
and the Colville, had had little trouble when once she got to the 
''lagoons." 

Dr. Anderson, who like myself knew the coast better '(fl'bm^**t)ur 
1908-12 expedition) by sled in winter than by boat in summer, had 
had more trouble bringing the Alaska through, though he got her 
creditably and without injury to the same wintering place, CoUin- 
son Point. Here the schooners were frozen in, quite safe both 
of them, Leffingwell said, though they were not in a real harbor 
but merely protected from winter ice pressure by shoals to seaward. 

We were comfortable and had a good time at Leffingwell's, but 
it worried my companions a little that we stayed three or four days. 
In fact, they had been worried a good deal on the entire journey 
east from Barrow by my conspicuous lack of hurry. Their book 
notions required heroism and hardship. I really think they felt 
we were falling conspicuously short of the best standards of polar 
travel in making a midwinter journey in comfort. If it could not 
(as by the best canons it should) be a flight from death, a race with 
the grim terrors of frost and hunger, we should at least refrain 
from the almost sacrilegious levity of making a picnic of it. But 
it almost was a picnic and I at least was enjoying myself. For good 
or ill, we were evidently unable to affect the destiny of the Karluk 
in any way and so she was, in a sense, off our minds. Nearly every 
Eskimo we met on the coast (and we met more than double the num- 
ber that I have had the temerity to discuss in this narrative) was an 
old friend. Then there was my insatiable interest in the study and 

*This map has since been published by the U. S. Geological Survey in 
connection with Leffingwell's painstaking and excellent monograph on "The 
Canning River District, Alaska." 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 89 

practice of the language which after six years I knew well enough 
to talk fluently although not nearly well enough to be satisfied. 

The beliefs of men of our own country often lack freshness to 
us because we have been familiar with them from childhood, and 
lack interest because we have outgrown most of them. But here 
were people in whose daily conversation unheard-of superstitions 
kept cropping out continually. When they were telling about their 
sealing experiences I could enjoy the intellectual gymnastic of trying 
to separate the biological knowledge from the superstition, the facts 
from the theories. Very few Eskimos are really liars, and still there 
is scarcely an Eskimo who can describe to you a day's seal hunt 
without mixing in a great many things that never happened (al- 
though, of course, he believes they have happened). Their delight 
in seeing you when you come, the hospitality and friendliness of 
their treatment no matter how long you stay, and the continual 
novelty of their misknowledge and the frankness with which they 
lay their entire minds open to you — all these are not only fascinat- 
ing at the time but profitable for record and reflection.* 

Continually there recurs to me the thought that by intimacy and 
understanding I can learn from these people much about my own 
ancestry. These men dress in skins, commonly eat their meat raw, 
and have the external characteristics which we correctly enough 
ascribe to the "cave man" stage of our forefathers. But instead of 
ferocious half-beasts, prowling around with clubs, fearful and vi- 
cious, we have the kindliest, friendliest, gentlest people, whose equals 
are difficult to find in any grade of our own civilization. They may 
not come up to all our high ideals (in which case the question may 
also arise as to whether our ideals are really high). They do not 
meet misfortune with a noble fortitude, but they have the happier 
way of refusing to recognize it when it comes. They eat a full meal 
though the larder be empty at the end. They may die of starva- 
tion (they hardly ever do) , but if so it is usually their optimism that 
is at the bottom of it. Perhaps they have been dancing and singing 
for week after week, neglecting the hunt on the theory that to- 
morrow will take care of itself. It may be true as Shakespeare says 
of the valiant, it is certainly true of the optimistic, that they never 
taste of death but once. 

*For some account of the beliefs and mode of thought of the Eskimos, 
see *'My Life With the Eskimo." For more detailed statement see "'An- 
thropological Papers of the Stefansson-Anderson Expedition," published by 
the American Museum of Natural History, New York, 1914. 



90 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

One reason we stayed over at Leffingwell's was to help him meas- 
ure a base for his triangulation, but the spell of bad weather lasted 
too long and he was not particular about doing it just then, so 
that eventually we proceeded towards Collinson Point without hav- 
ing done him this little service. 

The distance to Collinson Point was about thirty miles. Al- 
though the morning was fair, it turned out to be later one of the bad 
blizzards of the year, and we did not know exactly where Thom- 
sen's house was. But I did not want to pass it by, so we followed 
along the coast about two hours after the last twilight gave way to 
pitch darkness. Finding it was one of the feats that McConnell 
has since written about as an example of what by analogy to wood- 
craft may be called polarcraft. But that again was like finding your 
way about in your home town. I knew that certain places were 
suitable for house-building and others were not, and did not have 
to look everywhere for this house but only at certain places where 
it could reasonably be expected. I knew that Thomsen, being the 
ordinary type of white man, would be sure to build where drift- 
wood was especially abundant, and that driftwood accumulates only 
on a particular kind of beach — usually facing northwest in this dis- 
trict, as the high tides come with a west wind. It turned out when 
we found the house that Captain Bernard was there with his dog 
team. It had been a fairly long day, so the rest of our party stayed 
overnight at Thomsen's, while Bernard hitched up a dog team and 
took me on to Collinson Point. Wilkins and McConnell arrived the 
following morning, thus bringing to an end their first winter jour- 
ney. In my eyes they had covered themselves with credit, for they 
had proved as adaptable to polar conditions as any men I ever saw — 
and Wilkins not the less of the two though he hailed from sub- 
tropic Australia and had never spent a winter north of England. 
But, as intimated above, I think they were disappointed — here it was 
almost Christmas time, this was the very middle of the dreadful 
"polar night" (so called because for weeks the sun does not rise), 
and they had finished a three hundred-mile sledge journey without 
a hardship that came anywhere near storybook standards! 



CHAPTER IX 

A PAUSE AT WINTER QUARTERS 

AT Collinson Point I got the warmest sort of welcome, al- 
though it could scarcely be said that they were glad to see 
me, for seeing me here meant that something had gone 
wrong elsewhere. From the reports of whalers and their own 
knowledge of the condition of the ice, they had inferred long ago 
that the Karluk was in trouble. The Belvedere, too, had seen our 
smoke, as mentioned earlier, and had inferred from its position and 
stationary nature that we were keeping up steam while held fast 
by the ice ten or fifteen miles out in the pack. The common whaler 
opinion was that we ought to have abandoned the vessel imme- 
diately, coming ashore as best we could, for that is the method the 
whalers have always followed. 

As Leffingwell had told me. Dr. Anderson and three or four 
other men were absent, having gone east towards Herschel Island 
to get their letters and government dispatches into the hands of 
the Royal Northwest Mounted Police at Herschel Island, to be 
carried to Dawson by the Peel River Patrol in January. In Dr. 
Anderson's absence Chipman was in command, and the next day he 
gave me verbally a report of the situation and of the plans as they 
stood up to the moment of my coming. 

Chipman reported it had been the opinion of Dr. Anderson that 
their resources were inadequate for doing, the coming spring, any 
survey work except the coastline between the International Boun- 
dary and the mouth of the Mackenzie River. They had discussed 
the possibility of surveying the Mackenzie delta but had concluded 
that it was too far away from Collinson Point and beyond their 
resources. They had planned, therefore, in addition to this coast 
survey merely a reconnaissance of the Firth River (sometimes called 
the Herschel Island River) which heads in the Endicott 
Mountains to the south. Contrary to my view, it was the view of 
Dr. Anderson, in which the other men had necessarily concurred 
through their lack of local experience, that no survey work either 
geological or topographical could be done in the middle of winter, 
and that everything would have to wait for the warm weather of 

91 



92 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

spring. It has always been my opinion that the arctic cold need 
not entirely prevent work of this kind and that some sorts of geolog- 
ical work can be even better done in winter than in summer, espe- 
cially in places where the wind keeps the snow away and in river 
canyons where the ice of winter gives more ready access to the foot 
of a cliff than is possible when the stream bed is full of turbulent 
water in summer. 

One point that naturally interested me was that Chipman told 
me they had made a trial of my method of ''living of! the country" 
and had found that it did not work. The account which he gave 
me of their adventures in this connection sounded like the resume of 
a comic opera. 

It seems that in the fall (as some said, to see if there were game 
in the mountains, and as others had it, to demonstrate that there 
was none) , a party consisting of about half the expedition had made 
a foray up the Ulahula River.* 

When a man hunts for a living seriously in the autumn months, 
he gets up in the dark of the night. By dawn at the latest he leaves 
camp and is eight or ten miles away, beyond the area from which 

* Probably because the Eskimos who now occupy this country are immi- 
grants and because none of the real aborigines or their descendants are 
living in the vicinity, the Eskimo names of two rivers in this locality seem 
completely lost and in their stead we have the "Ulahula River" and "Jags 
River." 

Ulahula is a jargon word which may have its source in some South Pacific 
language, perhaps that of the Hawaiian Islands, and which in the "Pidgin" 
used by whalers in dealing with the Eskimos, signifies "to dance" or "to 
celebrate." The natural inference, then, is that the name Ulahula was given 
to the river by some whaler who knew that the Eskimos had either at a 
particular time or else customarily held dances or celebrations near it. This 
may connect the name of the river with the island at its mouth, Barter 
Island, which is so called because the natives from the coast eastward and 
Vv^estward as well as Indians from the Porcupine valley and other parts of 
the interior used to meet here for purposes of barter every summer. We 
have records of these meetings from many sources. I have talked with a 
number of Eskimos and some Indians who themselves took part in these 
meetings, and with Mr. Joseph Hodgson and Mr. John Firth, of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, who were both stationed in the Porcupine valley as Hudson's 
Bay factors while the Indians with whom they traded also made these jour- 
neys regularly to Barter Island. 

A somewhat smaller river east of the Ulahula is called the Jags. The 
origin of this name is definitely known. It is connected with a western 
Eskimo who was a r^ighty hunter in the employ of the whaling ships and 
who made the valley of this river his special hunting ground. At first he was 
a sober, industrious and efficient man but later he became so addicted to 
drink that his usefulness was greatly lessened. At the same time his real 
name was forgotten, making way for the nickname of Jags. When he died 
his name which had attached itself to the river was retained, both by the 
Eskimos and the whites. 




Winter Quarters at Collinsox Point. 
Top Picture: In upper bunks, Cox and O'Neill. Below, Anderson, Chip- 
man, Leffingwell. At Table, left to right: Bernard, McConnell, Johan- 
sen, Chipman, Leffingwell, O'Neill, Anderson, Brooks, Cox. Below: 
Ballou. 




S 

i 
I 

M 
O 



i 

i 

w 

02 



^ 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 93 

game can have been scared by the barking of dogs or the smoke 
smell of the camp, by the time that daylight enough for good shoot- 
ing comes into the southern sky. He then uses to the best advan- 
tage the four or five hours of hunting light, going from high hilltop 
to high hilltop and examining with his field glasses every exposed 
hillside or valley. If he does not see game the first day, he hunts 
similarly the second; and if he finds none the first week, he con- 
tinues the second week. For it is an essential of hunting conditions 
that although game may be abundant in a large region of country, 
it may at any time be absent from any small specific section. 

But this hunting party, which was partly a picnic and partly 
a baptism in the hardships of polar exploration, was, from Chip- 
man's description, a noisy rout of convivial spirits who seldom 
went far out of each other's road and who in various ways gave 
the game ample notice to leave, if there was any game. Probably 
there was none, for the excursion only lasted a week and it would be 
a matter of mere chance if in such a short trip game should be 
found. However, the trip served the useful purpose of easing their 
consciences, for now they knew that no game could be got and that 
there was no occasion for them to do anything but wait for the 
spring in the orthodox way of explorers, reading the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica or penny novels, according to temperament, making long 
diary entries^ listening to victrolas and having flashlight photo- 
graphs taken now and then, showing the comforts and conviviali- 
ties of an arctic home. 

A report had been sent to Ottawa, Mr. Chipman informed me, 
to the effect that the fall hunt had been a failure and that there 
was no game in the country, that winter would be spent in camp, 
and that when the weather became reasonably warm in the spring 
surveys would be made of the Herschel Island River and of the hun- 
dred miles or so of coast between the International Boundary and 
the Mackenzie mouth. When summer came the party would pro- 
ceed to Coronation Gulf to take up the work which had of neces- 
sity been deferred a year through the compulsory wintering at Col- 
linson Point. 

Chipman being a new man in the country, it was easy for me 
to convince him that a far wider program was open to us. When 
I showed him a copy of iny report to the Government from Point 
Barrow, outlining the project of surveying not only the Herschel 
Island River and the coast from the Boundary to the Mackenzie 
(as they had planned) , but also surveying and sounding the Mac- 
kenzie delta, he was delighted. Like any good workman he was 



94 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

anxious to do as much work and to have as much to show for his 
time as possible. 

Before my arrival the point of view had been that they could 
use for scientific and exploratory work only the resources which 
they actually had in their own personnel and in the dogs and sup- 
plies brought from Nome. M^^ view was, on the contrary, that 
when the Government had an expensive expedition in the field with 
a large staff of scientific men it would be folly to hamper any of the 
staff by confining their operations to what could be done with two 
or three dog teams and limited supplies, when good dogs could be 
purchased at a reasonable price locally and natives and whites 
engaged to assist in the carrying out of a more extensive work. 
Groceries and other supplies were available for this larger program, 
both from the whalers and traders along the coast just east of us 
and from the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Macpherson. 
I felt confident, too, that the Royal Northwest Mounted Police 
would assist us with whatever resources they might happen to have 
either at Herschel Island or Fort Macpherson. 

A few minutes after I arrived at Collinson Point Andrew Norem, 
the steward of the Mary Sachs, asked me for a confidential inter- 
view at the earliest possible moment. The Collinson Point party, 
apart from those who, like Thomsen, had trapping camps scattered 
about, were all living in a large log cabin originally built by "Duffy" 
O'Connor when he had his trading station there the year 1911-12, 
a cabin purchased by us and fitted up, with the kitchen in an alcove 
and a storehouse adjoining. With ten or fifteen men around in the 
evening when there was no outdoor work to do, it was not possible 
to talk privately, and I had to put Norem's request off until next day. 

What he had to tell me then was that he thought he was going 
insane. He said that during his lifetime he had seen various men 
become insane and that his own symptoms were like some of theirs. 
In particular, he had occasional fits of despondency. At these times 
he not only felt that every one was displeased with him but even had 
the idea that they were persecuting him in a most malicious way. 
If he lit his pipe he imagined that the tobacco had been adulterated 
with some evil-tasting and evil-smelling mixture. This usually made 
him angry, although he sometimes had enough sense to realize that 
he was probably imagining things. On several occasions he had 
induced one or more of the men to take a puff or two out of his 
pipe and they had always said that the tobacco was all right. When 
the fits of depression were on he took this verdict as a sign of con- 
spiracy against him; but in his lucid intervals he realized that the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 95 

tobacco had not been adulterated and that the whole thing was 
imagination. Lately these fits had been coming on two or three 
times a week. They had never lasted longer than a day. 

After a first momentary doubt I was convinced that Norem's 
case was serious. Chipman told me that Norem had been acting 
queerly for several weeks. Lately he had begun to tell members of 
the expedition in confidence that he thought he was going crazy. 
Hereupon the camp was divided fairly evenly into two parties: some 
thought the trouble was really serious, while others believed it was 
merely a trick to get out of doing his proper share of the work — 
"malingering," although the war had then not yet enriched the com- 
mon vocabulary with this word. 

It seemed that after the two ships went into winter quarters, 
arrangement had been made that Charles Brooks, steward of the 
Alaska, should be in charge of the cooking one week and Norem, of 
the Mary Sachs, the next. This arrangement had been in effect only 
a short time when Norem began to do his work badly. I found in 
the camp a feeling against Dr. Anderson because of his leniency 
towards Norem, whom some of the men regarded as a plain shirker, 
and I knew my decision was by no means popular when I took 
Anderson's view, confirming the arrangement that for the present 
Norem should be required to do none of the cooking and should be 
given the most healthful possible outdoor work, such as chopping 
wood, going with dog teams to fetch driftwood, and the like. I 
also arranged with Captain Nahmens of the Alaska, who had a 
trapping camp about six miles away, to invite him now and then 
for a visit. An apparently spontaneous invitation of that sort would 
be more likely to relieve his mind than an order directing him to 
go out to Nahmen's camp and stay there. 

For the time this plan seemed to work well and during my brief 
stay at Collinson Point Norem did not have the melancholia. Cap- 
tain Bernard and one or two of the others who had known and 
liked him in the mining camps of Alaska were rejoiced at the 
change, but others said that he was merely holding back so as not 
to give me any chance to determine from his tactics whether his 
condition was assumed or real. 



CHAPTER X 

WE MEET DR. ANDERSON 

I STAYED only a day or two at Collinson Point and then 
started eastward along the coast, encouraged by the enthu- 
siasm with which Chipman had received my plans for 
enlarging the work, and anxious to overtake Dr. Anderson before 
he sent away his mail, so that he could, if he desired, alter that 
report to the Government, eliminating the sections describing our 
lack of equipment and consequently restricted program and substi- 
tuting the more ambitious project which I h^(V outlined from Barrow. 

But on meeting Dr. Anderson's party about twenty miles east 
of Collinson Point, I found that his views and mine were far from 
coinciding. He insisted that we must abide by his program, which 
he had already sent off to Ottawa, and said that he did not believe 
we had any right to purchase dogs and supplies or to hire men for 
the projected survey of the Mackenzie delta, nor did he think the 
Government would approve of these expensive and too ambitious 
plans. He was of the opinion that the Mackenzie delta was too far 
from Collinson Point and could not be successfully reached for 
survey work, and also of the opinion that no really useful work 
would be done in sounding the river channels. He considered we 
had been instructed to work in the vicinity of Coronation Gulf and 
that we should practically mark time until we got there, husbanding 
all supplies and incurring the least possible expense no matter if this 
economy did limit very narrowly the scientific work done. 

My reply to this was that the instructions telling the expedition 
to do its first year's work in the vicinity of Coronation Gulf had 
been originally formulated by myself, although issued over the sig- 
nature of others, and that I could not but know exactly what they 
meant. We had expected to reach Coronation Gulf this year, but 
now that we could not I took it as our duty to do as much as pos- 
sible where we were. It seemed to me that as we had already in 
the field an expedition with a large staff of scientists drawing pay 
and costing as a whole perhaps one or two hundred thousand dol- 
lars, it would be folly to lose this entire sum just to save an addi- 
tional expenditure of fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 97 

When it became clear that our views were so diametrically at 
issue, Dr. Anderson tendered his resignation, saying that he would 
continue as a scientist on the staff but would no longer remain sec- 
ond in command and in local charge of the southern section. He 
changed his mind about resigning when I pointed out that in that 
event I should have to put the party under command of Chipman 
and it would lead to an untenable situation to have him, a man of 
many years of experience and older, under the command of Chip- 
man, a young and inexperienced man no matter how competent. 

Anderson's alternative was that I should stay and take local 
command myself. This I could not consider, both because it was 
not in accord with my judgment and also because I had already 
reported to the Government that I would not myself remain on 
shore in Alaska but would go north over the ice trying to fulfill the 
geographic purposes of the expedition. Exploration of the Beau- 
fort Sea had always ^ ?en our main task and the main reason for 
there being an expedition at all. This had applied from the earliest 
stage when it was under American auspices; and it was the car- 
dinal point when I discussed the expedition with the Prime Minis- 
ter of Canada, Sir Robert Borden, at the conference which led to 
his taking it over as a Government enterprise. Later, at a meeting 
of the Cabinet, to which Sir Robert invited me, I had again presented 
the same plans, receiving for them the approval of the Premier's 
colleagues. 

While partly conceding these points, Dr. Anderson still main- 
tained that as the Karluk had been lost, I had no right to divert 
any supplies or men from any other section of the expedition to the 
part which the Karluk had been expected to carry out even though 
it had been the central part. Here I replied that I had purchased 
the Mary Sachs as a sort of tender to make herself useful wherever 
she was needed. The commander of the expedition must judge for 
himself the meaning of the instructions by which he was bound, and 
do whatever seemed to him within the purpose of those instructions. 
I could not escape the blame if the expedition failed; it was for me 
therefore to insist on the carrying out of the plan I thought most 
likely to bring success. 

Dr. Anderson said he considered it impossible to explore the 
Beaufort Sea with any resources which we could get in Alaska and 
that any attempt to do so would be abortive, resulting in the expen- 
diture of money, the waste of supplies and probably the loss of 
lives, without any adequate result. I thought our prospect of suc- 
cess good even with only the resources we already had or could 



98 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

scrape together. This amounted to another phase of the dispute 
over whether an exploring party can live by forage on the ice of the 
polar sea. I had full faith in that method and my colleague had 
none. 

The result of the discussion was that I refused to take Ander- 
son's resignation and decided that he must remain in local charge 
of the Collinson Point base, advising him that he could protect him- 
self by making any written protests or declarations he liked, trans- 
mitted to the Government directly, or through me, or in both ways. 

This clash was by no means encouraging, but I felt sure that Dr. 
Anderson on mature consideration would see the advisability of 
following instructions, protecting himself as I had suggested by 
putting his disapproval on record and assuming the position that he 
considered it his duty to carry out orders, irrespective of his opinion 
of their wisdom. 



CHAPTER XI 

MIDWINTER TRAVEL AND PREPARATION FOR SPRING WORK, 1914 

THE meeting with Dr. Anderson had taken place at the camp 
of the engineer of the Mary Sachs, J. R. Crawford. He as 
well as several other members of the expedition had been 
hired on the understanding that they would work for the Govern- 
ment during six months of the year and would have leave of absence 
the other six, during which time they were free to trap or do what- 
ever they wanted to do in their own interests. There had been three 
reasons for my making this sort of agreement with some of the men. 
First, they preferred that arrangement ; second, it is generally inad- 
visable to retain in a winter camp a large number of unoccupied men, 
for friction will then develop and it is better to have them scattered, 
each on his own and doing something in which he is interested; 
third, it was a manifest saving of money to the Government to feed 
and pay a man only for that part of the year when he is useful, 
still having him at hand when he was needed the following 
spring. Yet it must be said that this arrangement, although logical, 
did not work out very well, and before the expedition was over 
all the men had been taken back on a yearly salary basis. 

Proceeding east along the coast, we visited some Eskimo camps 
and then arrived at the winter quarters of the Polar Bear, now in 
charge of Hulin S. Mott. Besides the crew, the Polar Bear carried 
a party of sportsmen, including two scientific men, from Boston, 
Massachusetts, who had chartered her for a hunting expedition and 
had been frozen in and obliged to winter. They were Winthrop S. 
Brooks, Joseph Dixon, John Heard, Jr., Samuel Mixter and George 
S. Silsbee. Two of the original party, Eben S. Draper and Dunbar 
Lockwood, had gone home overland in the fall with the captain and 
owner of the ship, Louis Lane, and his photographer, W. H. Hudson, 
crossing the mountains by sled, going south to the Yukon and thence 
to the Pacific by way of Fairbanks and Cordova. 

Not having expected to winter in the Arctic, the Polar Bear, 
when she was caught by the ice, found herself with incomplete equip- 
ment and limited food supplies. One of the great needs in this 
country for a party spending the winter is dog teams and sledges, 

99 



100 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and these the Polar Bear lacked. The variety of food was also 
small, and in the case of some items the party could have eaten in 
a week what they, through their strict rationing, made to last a 
year. If I remember rightly, their bacon allowance, for instance, 
was less than a quarter of a pound per man per month. About the 
only things they had enough of were sugar and flour, and I remem- 
ber their telling me, with the enthusiasm of a great discovery, that 
they had never imagined a ''sugar sandwich" would taste so good. 
On occasions when I was there the sugar sandwich came at midnight 
— two slices of bread with granulated sugar between. 

This group, four men from Harvard and one from Leland Stan- 
ford, impressed on me more forcibly than any other single instance, 
although I have seen many cases of a similar kind, the superior 
adaptability of young men of the college type as compared with 
those of the type of sailor or ordinary laboring man. There were 
also in the party one or two young high school boys from Seattle, 
and Mr. Mott himself was an excellent sort. Accordingly, I heard 
no grumbling, but some of my companions who associated more with 
the sailors told me that there was a great deal of dissatisfaction 
with the food. Much of the conversation of these men was about 
what fine things they were used to eating. In other words, what 
struck the college men as an adventure involving the interesting 
discovery that a sugar sandwich could be as delicious as anything 
they had ever eaten in Beacon Street, struck the sailors as a phys- 
ical hardship and social indignity. 

Going east from the Polar Bear fifteen or twenty miles, we 
came to the steam whaler Belvedere in the ice a mile or two off- 
shore. She carried among other things supplies which she had 
intended to land for our expedition at Herschel Island. She was 
now so short of certain kinds of food herself that she had already 
arranged with Dr. Anderson for the use of some barrels of salt 
beef and salt pork of ours, for which she was to pay by giving the 
expedition bacon the next year. As this bacon was to be sent in 
from Seattle, its arrival in time to transfer to our ships at Herschel 
Island in August, 1914, was very problematic. Considering it as 
too much a bird in the bush, I asked Captain Cottle to give us in- 
stead something which he had actually on hand, so he arranged pay- 
ment in flour and canned milk, of which the Belvedere had a super- 
abundance. 

It turned out that my distrust was well-founded, for although 
the bacon had been ordered and an attempt made to send it in, it 
did not arrive in time for connections at Herschel Island. As for 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 101 

trading salt meat for flour, that I was delighted to do ; on the basis 
of market values in Seattle and at the prices which then prevailed, 
the food value of a dollar's worth of flour was far greater than that 
of a dollar's worth of salt meat. Furthermore, having always looked 
upon the Arctic as abundantly stocked with meat, I have never seen 
the use of bringing any in. What we had brought was in deference 
to the food tastes of our sailors. Personally I have none too much 
sympathy with a man who has an abundance of caribou meat and 
must have bread with it, but I have far less with a man who, hav- 
ing caribou meat, wants to change off to salt beef now and then. 
A great advantage, too, of flour over salt meat is that it is far 
more satisfactory for emergency dog-feed. It is not an ideal dog- 
feed, but mixed with other things it can be cooked up into a passable 
ration, while salt meat cannot be fed to dogs without the bother of 
soaking it first in several changes of water, and in the Arctic in 
most places water is in winter one of the hardest things to get. 

At the Belvedere I spent Christmas very pleasantly with Cap- 
tain and Mrs. Cottle, old friends. There was no hurry about getting 
down to Herschel Island, for I learned from Captain Cottle then 
that the police did not intend to send their mail out before the 
New Year. 

A day's journey east from the Belvedere was another old friend, 
"Duffy" O'Connor, who had been landed there with a trading outfit 
by a ship which had later gone away and left him. His goods con- 
sisted largely of articles which our expedition needed badly. He 
was not making much of a success of the trading venture, for the 
compulsory wintering of the Belvedere just west of him had given 
him a competitor that he had not counted upon. So it suited 
O'Connor to sell out to me, and I arranged to purchase the lot for 
eight thousand dollars, a cheap price for the locality at the time, 
although high as compared with prevailing wholesale prices in the 
trading centers of the world. 

Ten miles east of O'Connor's place, Captain Martin Andreasen 
was wintering with the North Star. He also was an old friend and 
a man who had been trading in these regions for a number of years. 
I had met him last at Point Atkinson east of the Mackenzie when 
I spent several days at his camp there in 1912. 

Captain Andreasen and his ship, the North Star, were exponents 
of not exactly a new but nevertheless an uncommon theory of arctic 
navigation. The one idea familiar to those who read arctic books 
is that a ship for ice navigation should be tremendously strong, 
tremendously powerful, and shaped in such a way that she has a 



102 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

chance to be lifted up by ice that presses around her. This is the 
theory upon which all explorers of late years have worked. The 
traders who navigate the Beaufort Sea do not work on any such prin- 
ciple, nor, in fact, on any principle at all, except that of using com- 
monsense and then taking their chances with almost any kind of 
craft. 

For instance, when Captain Cottle was in command of the Ruby, 
in 1915, he loaded her so heavily with a deck cargo of lumber that 
her hatches had to be battened down and even in a quiet sea she had 
eighteen inches of water over her decks. In other words, he was 
navigating a sort of submarine. This would have been considered 
a very heroic or a very foolish thing for an explorer to do, but 
in a trader it attracted little attention. In addition to his crew 
Captain Cottle had with him, as was usual, his wife, and on that 
particular trip he also had Mr. and Mrs. C. Harding, who were 
going to establish a trading post for the Hudson's Bay Company at 
Herschel Island. Of course he could not have got in with the Ruby 
in 1915 had it been an unfavorable ice season as in 1913. But in 
he did come, landing his passengers and his cargo safely at Herschel 
Island. 

Such navigation as that of the Ruby cannot be said to be based 
on any system, but Matt Andreasen and the North Star had a sys- 
tem that was very definite. The basic idea is that on most of the 
north coast of Alaska and north coast of Canada the ocean is 
shallow inshore, with a number of rivers in the spring bringing 
warm water from the land to melt away the inshore ice. It happens 
frequently that while the heavy ice still lies offshore so strong that 
no ice breaker yet constructed could possibly get through it, there 
is a lane of thaw water along the land through which a boat of very 
small draft can worm her way, following the beach. Andreasen had 
purposely built the North Star to draw only four feet two inches 
of water, loaded, and in place of a keel a centerboard that could 
be withdrawn into the body of the ship. He had demonstrated 
through several seasons that he could wriggle along faster than strong 
whalers could bunt and break their way eastward. 

Andreasen had made no attempt to build the North Star strong, 
for he had a method of which he may have been the inventor, of 
dealing with the closing in of the ice around her. The ship was only 
about fifty feet long and could turn around almost in her own 
length. When he saw the ice closing in and there seemed to be no 
chance of getting out of the way entirely, he would select in the 
neighborhood some big ice cake that sloped down to the water's edge 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 103 

on one side. He would then steam full speed against this floe. The 
bow of the North Star was so shaped that instead of hitting the ice 
a hard blow, she would slide up on it, standing level because she 
had a flat bottom. Thus by her own power she was able to put 
herself half-way on top of the ice. The crew were prepared to jump 
out, fasten an ice anchor, and with blocks and tackle to haul the 
ship entirely up on the floe, so that when the ice cakes closed in 
and began to crowd each other their pressure did not come upon the 
ship but merely upon the ice on which she was standing. If this 
was a solid piece it was likely not to break, and as a matter of fact, 
on the one or two occasions when Captain Andreasen had been 
compelled to use this method the ice selected had stood the test. 
Later when it slackened out and there was a chance to continue 
navigation, a small charge of powder placed in an augur hole in the 
ice would shatter the cake and let the ship down into the water again. 

I have always been temperamentally inclined to deal with nat- 
ural difficulties by adaptation and avoidance rather than by trying 
to overcome them by force. The Andreasen idea of ice navigation 
was congenial and its application convincing. Since I had first 
seen the North Star in 1912 I had admired her and intended to buy 
her some time if I could ; for with my theory that a white man can 
live in the Arctic anywhere, supporting himself and his men and 
his dogs by hunting, a little ship like the Star, though she is capable 
only of carrying about twenty tons of freight, is as good as a much 
larger ship would be to those who work on the carry-all system. 
Accordingly, I now arranged to buy her from Captain Andreasen, 
along with his entire trading outfit, and at a price under the circimi- 
stances equally reasonable with O'Connor's. 

Through buying the O'Connor and Andreasen supplies and 
through purchase and exchange of goods made with Captain Cottle 
and Mr. Mott, I now had supplies enough so that the entire program 
reported to the Government from Point Barrow could be carried out, 
with a remainder for Dr. Anderson to take east with him into 
Coronation Gulf that was larger than his total supplies for that 
purpose would have been had the plans not been altered when I 
came to Collinson Point. 

Our arrival at Herschel Island at the Royal Northwest Mounted 
Police barracks was just before the New Year. The post was under 
the command of Inspector J. W. Phillips, and he and the men under 
his command did everything to make our party welcome. This 
was their natural disposition as well as a part of the hospitality com- 
mon in the North, although they had also received instructions 



104 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

from the Commissioner of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, 
Colonel A. Bowen Perry of Regina, to cooperate with the expedi- 
tion in every way they could. 

The police patrol was starting in a day or two for Fort Mac- 
pherson, which lies a little over two hundred miles to the southeast 
up the Peel River, just above the head of the Mackenzie delta. 
This patrol, made by the Inspector himself and Constable Jack 
Parsons, I was able to share. The journey revealed both men tem- 
peramentally and physically well adapted for the sort of work they 
were doing. It is certainly true that the Royal Northwest Mounted 
Police is a force of men with a remarkably high average from what- 
ever point of view they are regarded, although they naturally vary 
among themselves and do not in every case come up to storybook 
standards. But these two could scarcely have been better adapted 
to the work they were doing, a corollary of which is that they liked 
it and liked the country. Parsons has never left it since, although 
he left the Mounted Police service and is now a trader in the employ 
of the Hudson's Bay Company at Cape Bathurst. Inspector Phil- 
lips had been north before and this was his second assignment to 
the Arctic coast. He made every effort to stay there as long as he 
could, and when eventually ordered out he was able to get his 
superiors to send him back North again. Just now he is not in the 
North, however, and admits that the country does not come up to 
what it used to be. The climate and topography are still the same 
but, as the Inspector puts it, ^'the place is getting" too damned 
civilized." 

I found on this trip that Inspector Phillips had the important 
qualification of being genuinely interested in everything that per- 
tained to the natives. At first he had a hope of being able to learn 
the language, but after a discussion of this subject with me he gave 
that up and confined himself like all the police inspectors before 
him, to the use of the jargon, a sort of ''pidgin English." * 

About the only people for whom it is practicable to try to learn 
Eskimo are missionaries who expect to devote their entire lives to 
the field. The principles of the language are entirely different 
from those of European languages, and in order to talk Eskimo 
you have first to adopt in general a different mode of thought. 
Then, like most "primitive" languages, Eskimo is so highly in- 
flected that all the complexity of Greek declensions, conjugations 
and grammar gives but a faint idea of it. Further, between ten 

*See V. Stefansson: "Vocabulary of the Herschel Island Eskimo Jargon," 
published in the American Anthropologist, April-June, 1909. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 105 

and fifteen thousand words are used in everyday speech, which is 
a far larger vocabulary than is employed to-day by persons speak- 
ing any ordinary European language. When you combine the pe- 
culiar mode of thought with the complexity of inflection and exten- 
siveness of vocabulary, it is seen to be a task of intense application 
for many years to get a command of the language.* 

It is not so strange, therefore, as it seems at first sight, that 
there are white men who have resided for thirty or forty years on 
the arctic coast, with Eskimo wives and grandchildren, who never- 
theless have so small a command of the language that when their 
own wives talk to their own children they have often no idea 
even of the subject they are talking about. Of those who have been 
long resident the exceptions known to me are Mr. C. D. Brower 
of Cape Smythe, and about five or six missionaries who during 
the last twenty or thirty years have worked in Alaska and north- 
ern Canada. Of the three expeditions with which I have been 
connected, Mr. Leffingwell, the commander of the first, and Mr. 
Jenness, the anthropologist of the present one, are the only men 
who have even tried to learn anything beyond the jargon. With 
Mr. Leffingwell, who is a geologist, the language was a pastime, but 
Mr. Jenness needed it in his studies as an ethnologist and acquired 
in three years a better command of it than I was able to in my 
first three. 

Inspector Phillips turned his interest to the customs, beliefs and 
mode of thought of the Eskimos as he could get them through in- 
terpreters, and for that purpose he made good use of me while we 
traveled together towards Macpherson, visiting Eskimos along the 
road and talking with our own Eskimo companions. Two bits of 
information that came out on the journey seem interesting enough 
to relate. 

One evening Inspector Phillips and I were discussing the ques- 
tion of whether the missionaries as a whole had done a great deal 
of good in the country. Taliak, an Eskimo I had just hired who 
had lived for a year or two with one of the Church of England 
missionaries, listened to the discussion and gathered from it that 
we were not as favorable in our attitude towards the missionaries 
as he thought we ought to be. As with any other Eskimo, the in- 
tensity and sincerity of his newly-acquired religious opinions are 
beyond question. He also wants it distinctly understood that they 
are beyond question. Phillips and I had not been paying special 

*See discussion of the principles of the Eskimo language in Chapter 
XXIV of "My Life With the Eskimo," Macmillan, 1913. 



106 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

attention to him and had not noted that he was getting angrier and 
angrier, until out of the corner of my ear I heard him say to Sik- 
sigaluk, the Inspector's interpreter, that there would be no Eskimos 
living to-day in the Mackenzie district if it had not been for the 
missionaries. That remark I repeated to the Inspector, and sug- 
gested that if he cross-questioned Taliak he would probably get at 
first hand some views about the missionaries that would be quite as 
interesting as any he could get from me. 

So we turned to Taliak and asked him what he had meant. He 
said he had merely made a remark in Eskimo to another Eskimo, 
one not intended to be taken up or discussed with a white man ; and 
it took a good deal of pressure to get from him what he had in mind. 
But it finally came out that he considered it well known that a 
few years ago there was a large body of armed white men over in 
the Yukon valley in Alaska who had come there for the purpose of 
making a foray across the mountains into the coast land to kill off 
all the Eskimos and take their land for occupation by white people. 
This purpose would undoubtedly have been carried out if it had 
not been for the missionaries, who induced the Government to send 
the Royal Northwest Mounted Police into the country to protect 
them. 

At first this seemed so grotesque that it was difficult to deter- 
mine any foundation for it. The explanation turned out to be a 
garbled version of the incipient dispute between the United States 
and Canada as to the location of Herschel Island, it having been 
originally assumed by the American whalers that the island was 
on the Alaska side of the International Boundary, and accordingly 
that the Canadian Government had no authority over them when at 
their winter quarters. The United States Revenue Cutter Thetis 
was sent to Herschel Island in 1889 to determine the position of the 
island, and found it to be well within Canadian territory. Later 
the missionaries were doubtless in part responsible for getting the 
first detachment of police sent in to Herschel Island to establish 
Canadian law among the American whaling fleet there. From 
this boundary dispute and this effort of the missionaries to get 
police sent in, Taliak and apparently all the Eskimos of the district 
had got the idea that the police were protecting them from the 
incursion of an army or a horde of armed people who desired to 
dispossess them of their land. 

Another interesting point that came out on the patrol journey 
was that the Eskimos had a very definite opinion as to why the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 107 

summer of 1913 had been such a very bad ice year. Siksigaluk, 
the police interpreter Eskimo, told us that during the summer 
when a large number of his people were at Herschel Island awaiting 
impatiently the arrival of trading ships from the west, and when 
in their daily walks to the top of the island they kept finding 
that the ice was jammed in against the land to the west of them, 
Mr. Young, lay missionary of the Church of England, told them 
that probably the Lord had sent the ice to keep the wicked scien- 
tists in the Karluk from getting into the country. From this re- 
mark the Eskimos had deduced, and very logically, that the same 
ice that was sent to keep the scientists out of the country had also 
kept the trading ships out. For this reason the community were 
very resentful against us for the non-arrival at the island of the 
Belvedere, Polar Bear and Elvira! 

Later on at Fort Macpherson I saw Mr, Young and found that 
he denied, no doubt with entire truth, that he had ever made any 
such remark. However, the Eskimos got the idea somewhere, per- 
haps from their own inner consciousness, and the fact throws an 
interesting light not only on their mental status but on the some- 
what external Christianity which they have espoused so warmly. 

Just as children may be kindhearted, attractive and in every 
way charming and still believe in Santa Claus or even in Jack 
the Giant Killer, so the Eskimos are no less a delightful people for 
all their childlike notions. In common with nearly all other ob- 
servers, I find them less charming as they grow more sophisticated, 
but this should not be charged against the missionaries, for the 
sophistication is only in small degree their work. It is the aggre- 
gate result of the intercourse of the Eskimos with all sorts of white 
men, and not the particular result of their intercourse with mission- 
aries, which is changing them gradually into a less attractive and 
less fortunate people. 

The second day out from Herschel Island on the journey to- 
wards Macpherson we overtook in a deserted Eskimo house Storker 
T. Storkerson, who had been first officer on the schooner Duchess 
of Bedford in 1906-07. This was the expedition with which I had 
been connected as anthropologist, having intended to join it at 
Herschel Island in the summer of 1906. On that occasion I had 
come down the Mackenzie River and arrived at the appointed 
rendezvous in August, waiting there until September for the expe- 
dition. They never got through that far, however, for the freeze-up 
overtook them at Flaxman Island, where the ship was eventually 



108 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

broken up to build the house in which Leffingwell, one of the joint 
commanders, afterward lived for many years and where he had 
recently entertained us so hospitably. 

Storkerson was traveling alone. His family was living in the 
forested section about half-way up the Mackenzie delta, where he 
had left them to make the round journey of about five hundred miles 
to Captain Andreasen's trading establishment near the Interna- 
tional Boundary. He was now on his way back home from what 
had been a hard trip, for he had lost some of his dogs by disease 
and had been compelled to harness himself to the sled to help the 
remaining animals haul the heavy load. From the first it had been 
my intention to try to engage Storkerson, who was about the best 
"all around" man it was possible for the expedition to get. 1* 
now found he had not been very prosperous in his trapping and 
had been spending his money quite as fast as he made it, so that 
he was glad to give up trapping for a while and join forces with us. 
There was enough of the poet about Storkerson so that he could see 
as well the romantic side of the search for undiscovered lands, and 
of such forays into the unknown. 

On the way up the delta I found that for purposes of negotiat- 
ing with various residents I had to travel rather more slowly than 
the police, and they preceded us to Fort Macpherson. About half- 
way up, in the same neighborhood in which Storkerson lived, were 
two white men, Peder Pedersen and Willoughby Mason, with whom 
I spent several days. They were on a diet restricted by the cir- 
cumstances of the entire neighborhood. 

It seems that the previous summer most of the Eskimos had 
made journeys either to Herschel Island to meet the traders, or 
to Fort Macpherson to meet the missionaries, during the time 
when they should have been fishing. When they returned to their 
fishing places the "run" for the year was largely over, and as a 
result nearly everybody in the delta was short of fish and on the 
verge of starvation. Fish are hard to catch in the delta in mid- 
winter, and it was a very bad rabbit year. Moose are uncommon and 
caribou usually absent. There was no danger of anybody actually 
dying of hunger but there was more than a possibility that some 
of the dogs might starve. Mason had come down the Mackenzie 
a few years before as a member of a party of prospectors who had 
with them two horses and carried a large quantity of corn for 
horse feed. The first year they had made hay for the horses with 
scythes (this was about two hundred miles north of the arctic 
circle, by the way) and had fed them during the winter on hay 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 109 

supplemented with corn. During the second summer they had 
come to the conclusion that their "prospects" were not going to 
yield much gold, some of their companions had left the country, 
and the horses had been turned loose to forage for themselves. 
According to native report, the horses survived much of the winter 
and it is probable that they were eventually killed by wolves. The 
thing pertinent to our situation was that about the only food of 
Mason and Pedersen was boiled corn from the stock originally 
brought in as horse-feed. 

I was Mr. Mason's guest for about a week. This diet was a 
new adventure, and I took to it enthusiastically. Two companions 
of mine were also guests, one the sailor Louis Olesen, whom we 
had picked up in Nome, and the other the Eskimo boy Taliak, 
whom we had engaged on the coast. Both of them objected to 
living on corn, the Eskimo because he preferred meat, and the 
sailor because he was not a horse and had not joined the expe- 
dition to live on horse-feed. That attitude amused both Mason 
and me a good deal, and I think that while Olesen was there the 
diet was more strictly confined to corn than would have been the 
case otherwise. 

During that week I worked out pretty clearly the details of 
the delta survey program for the coming spring. I bought from 
Mason a gasoline launch which had belonged to his mining outfit. 
This launch, the Edna, was of the "tunnel-built" type, thirty feet 
long, and her speed was said to be sixteen miles an hour. She had 
an excellent reputation with the Police, who had seen her come 
to Herschel Island (which necessitates from forty to sixty miles of 
ocean voyage, according to which branch of the delta one uses), 
and she had an adequate supply of fuel. Pedersen, who said he 
had been engineer on a gasoline tug in the harbor of San Francisco, 
was hired to put her in condition and to operate her. He and 
the boat were to be at the service of Chipman during the spring, 
while Cox was to have a smaller launch purchased from the 
Belvedere. Between the two survey parties and the two launches 
a good beginning would be made on the survey. The Mackenzie 
delta is a mass of islands and tangled channels like the delta of 
every great river, and it was not reasonable to hope that a survey 
of all the channels could be made. But the experience of local 
white men and Eskimos had already shown which channels were 
the most hopeful for navigation by big ships, and these I expected 
to get mapped and sounded. 

Although out of chronological order, I will say here that this 



no THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

program was practically carried out, although it developed that 
Pedersen's knowledge of engineering when running the gasoline 
launch in San Francisco had been confined to his ability to start 
and stop an engine that was in perfect condition and to hoist a 
distress signal when anything went wrong. Nothing went wrong 
with the Edna, except that there was too much oil in her cylinders 
and the "timing" of the electric spark was not quite right, but 
these simple difficulties were not understood; she could not be used 
at all that summer, and Chipman had to do what work he could 
with a whale-boat. This cut down the extensiveness of his work 
by much more than half. The other launch with Cox in charge 
did excellent work, for he himself was a good engineer, thanks 
to which the aggregate of the work done by the two parties was 
almost as great as I had hoped, including the sounding of one 
channel with evidence that a ship drawing six feet of water can 
enter the Mackenzie from the sea. This together with what we 
know of the navigability above the delta shows that a ship draw- 
ing six feet of water can steam fifteen hundred miles up the river 
from the sea to the rapids at Fort Smith. 

In addition to buying the launches for the two survey parties, 
I secured from the Mounted Police a quantity of provisions which 
were cached at strategic points in the delta, and made all necessary 
arrangements for the prosecution of their work. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE COLLINSON POINT DIFFICULTIES 

SO far as my personal plans for ice exploration were concerned, 
the engagement of Storkerson had set them a good deal for- 
ward, for they demanded a few very good men rather than a 
large number of ordinary ones. As soon as I could see clearly 
what the program in the delta would he, I wrote out a summary 
of it to transmit to Dr. Anderson so that the topographers, Chipman 
and Cox, and O'Neill, the geologist, would know what facilities 
they might expect to work with. I also wrote out a second letter 
of instructions, giving in detail the plans for the outfitting of my 
own party for the journey north over the Beaufort Sea. 

Directions were that the outfitting base should be at Martin 
Point, about forty miles east of Collinson Point and fifteen miles 
west of the Polar Bear. Storkerson's advice about the outfitting 
was to be followed in general, but in order not to disarrange Dr. 
Anderson's routine, I asked him to put Chipman or some of his 
other men in direct charge of that work. Various details of prepara- 
tions were included: tents of silk or Burberry were to be made 
or altered, the sounding machine was to be overhauled by the 
marine biologist, Johansen; watches, purchased for use as pocket 
chronometers, were to be carefully rated, and any chronometers 
which the topographers could spare me from their outfit were to 
be rated and put aside for my use. Storkerson was to be given the 
use of several dog teams and the men to handle them, certain sup- 
plies were to be hauled from Collinson Point to Martin Point, and 
other supplies from the Belvedere and Polar Bear. Everything 
was to be ready by the first of March for our start north over 
the ice from Martin Point. 

When these letters were completed, I gave them to Storkerson 
to take to Collinson Point, giving him Olesen and the dog team, 
while I purchased other dogs in the delta and kept the boy Taliak 
with me. 

When Storkerson started towards Collinson Point I proceeded 
up the river to Fort Macpherson where I completed my dispatches 

111 



112 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

to the Government, giving details of how the program which I had 
already sent to them from Point Barrow was being carried out. 
During this time I had the opportunity of many pleasant chats 
with my oldest friend in that country, John Firth, whom I had 
known since 1906, as well as with the police, missionaries, and 
traders both of Macpherson and of Red River. All of them were 
as helpful as possible and greatly interested and as a result, I ex- 
plained our plans more in detail to them than I did to most other 
people. It may be for that reason that later on, when we had 
disappeared from sight into the ice north of Alaska and were sup- 
posed to be dead by Eskimos and whalers as well as by the members 
of our own expedition (and by the arctic explorers in Europe and 
America to whom the Ottawa Government later referred for an 
opinion), Inspector Phillips and Mr. Firth were among the few 
who stuck to the idea that our plans were sound and that we were 
probably alive. 

One of the reasons why I had always wanted Storkerson as a 
member of the expedition was that I had full confidence in his 
energy and judgment in carrying out orders. So far as the prepa- 
ration of the equipment for the ice work was concerned, he was a 
far better man than I, and the best thing to do in that regard was 
to leave him alone. Dr. Anderson having been directed to put at 
Storkerson's disposal facilities ample for carrying out all instruc- 
tions and plans for the ice journey, there was no need for me to 
hurry back to the outfitting camp. It was enough to arrive at 
Martin Point about the time when everything was ready, since a 
day or two of rest would be all I should require before starting 
out upon the ice. 

So I was able to be leisurely about completing the work in 
the Mackenzie, but once it was done I started promptly westward. 
On the third or fourth day, about fifteen miles west of Herschel 
Island, I met several sledges proceeding eastward. When I saw 
that they were ours and recognized the men with them, I realized 
I was facing the most serious development of the expedition so 
far. For some of these were men who should have been now em- 
ployed at Martin Point, getting things ready for the ice trip. The 
written directions had been definite, and yet they had not only not 
been carried out, but things were being done incompatible with 
both their spirit and letter. 

J. J. O'Neill, geologist, proved to be in charge of this party. 
He brought me a letter from Dr. Anderson. I asked O'Neill to 
walk with me back to the police barracks at Herschel Island, 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 113 

allowing the sledges of his party as well as my own to precede 
us there. It seemed best to say nothing more to him before reading 
the letter. 

As we walked I read it. Together with O'Neill's answers to 
occasional inquiries where some point was not quite clear, the letter 
made me understand that our situation could scarcely have been 
worse. Dr. Anderson, my second in command, acknowledged the 
receipt of my instructions brought to him by Storkerson and said 
that, after consultation with the scientific staff and with the other 
members of the expedition, he had decided not to obey them. He 
himself and the rest were of the opinion that my proposed journey 
north over the ice was a "stunt" to get me newspaper notoriety; 
that no serious scientific work was intended; and that if any were 
intended none could be accomplished on any such plans as I was 
contemplating. They considered themselves justified not only in 
withholding assistance for this journey, but also in preventing me 
from using any supplies that were at CoUinson Point on either of 
the ships Alaska or Mary Sachs. 

The letter then referred to the supplies of the expedition being 
carried by the Belvedere and said that the writer and the scientific 
staff would protest against Captain Cottle's turning any of these 
over to me, and would take the position that if I used any of them 
it was "a criminal misappropriation of Government property." 
The criminal part must have been that Dr. Anderson interpreted 
the Government's instructions to mean that I had no right to these 
supplies for any work except that in the vicinity of Coronation 
Gulf, and my using any part of them for the ice work would be 
disobedience to the Government. 

The wording of the letter, while it showed by its violence that 
it had been written in what might be fairly termed "the heat of 
passion," left no doubt of the full sincerity of its writer and the 
staff. They were no stage villains bent themselves on being crimi- 
nal. In their own esteem they were acting in the public interest 
in trying to forestall misuse of public property. In the interests 
of science they were preventing a foray into a frozen ocean which 
in their opinion could yield no knowledge, predestined as it was 
to failure through inadequate plans ; and in the interests of human- 
ity they were discouraging a venture which, if carried as far as I 
said I intended, would lead to multiple death through freezing or 
starvation.* 

* Dr Anderson's letter later had the following history. On leaving land 
for the ice trip March 22, 1914, I left it, with other valuable papers and a 



114 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

After I had read the letter, a conversation with O'Neill added 
light. Apparently members of the expedition had been discussing 
both with the local Eskimos and with the whalers my plan of walk- 
ing north over the frozen ocean with intent to depend for food and 
fuel on the animals we might find. The Eskimos considered the 
project suicide, saying that seals and polar bears would not be 
found at any great distance from land, and that we should inevi- 
tably starve if we did not lose our lives through some accident 
of travel over the broken and continually shifting ice. The whalers 
were of the same opinion. The members of the expedition then 
felt no doubt of the substantial insanity of my project, and no 
doubt that they were justified in taking steps to prevent me from 
carrying it out. They were quite sincere in their opinion that the 
Government at Ottawa and public opinion in general would sustain 
them in that position. 

A little quiet discussion with O'Neill shook his confidence a 
good deal. Before we arrived at the police barracks he told me 
that his mind had been changed so far that, although he could not 
very well go back on his agreement to stand by the rest of the 
Collinson Point people in their opposition, he would at least go 
so far as to give me his pocket chronometer. 

And then it came out that one of the conclusions reached by 

small sum of money belonging to a member of the expedition, in a locked 
iron box of which I had the key. This box was later placed in charge of 
the Royal Northwest Mounted Police at Herschel Island. During the spring 
of 1914 the opinion grew stronger that my companions and myself had 
died out on the ice. This opinion was held, with two or three exceptions, 
by Eskimos, whalers and members of the expedition who were at Herschel 
Island. On the theory that I was dead, my iron box was broken open. One 
reason assigned for this was to get for the owner the money which the box 
contained (I think about twenty dollars). 

When I arrived at Herschel Island a year later. Inspector Phillips of the 
Royal Northwest Mounted Police turned over the box to me with the 
explanation that it had been broken open by Dr. Anderson. I missed noth- 
ing from it except the money, which had. been given to its owner, and the 
letter. 

Desiring the text of this letter for the completion of the records of the 
expedition, the Deputy Minister of Naval Service of Canada in 1919 wrote 
to Dr. Anderson asking him for a copy of the carbon which, since the letter 
was typewritten, he presumed the writer had retained. Dr. Anderson replied 
that he had kept no copy. He also stated to the Deputy Minister that my 
box had not been broken open by himself but by Wilkins. Wilkins was 
asked if he had broken open the box. He replied he had not; and he did 
not really know who had, but had always understood it was Dr. Anderson. 
I referred the matter again to Inspector Phillips. He says he is prepared 
to say both that he told me Dr. Anderson had broken open the box, and 
that he believed Dr. Anderson opened it, but that he cannot say positively 
that he knows he did. Anyway, the letter is lost. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 115 

the staff at Collinson Point had been that I should probably be 
unable to get a pocket chronometer, and that if they were to refuse 
to turn any over to me I should be thereby prevented from going 
out on the ice. Certainly to go without a chronometer would not 
only put our lives in extreme danger, but would prevent us from 
being able to say at the end of the journey accurately where we 
had been. This would rob any soundings we might take, for 
instance, of most of their scientific value. 

O'Neill's decision to give me that chronometer really turned 
the tide for me, for the chronometer point was the only one where 
I felt myself legally weak. The expedition was under the Naval 
Service, but the chronometers were the property of the Department 
of Mines, and had been handed by them to the men who carried 
them, who could make a claim on that ground that they were 
not part of the equipment of the expedition proper and therefore 
not subject to my requisition. 

This watch was the one we relied on in our successful ice jour- 
neys of the next several years and without which they could not 
have been made. I have felt that O'Neill's handing it to me 
without either request or demand of mine was a pretty fine thing, 
in view of the fact that he seemed to be sincerely convinced that 
our undertaking was stupid and was doomed. Only, he had the 
sporting fairness ta feel that he did not want the mere lack of a 
reliable timepiece to prevent my having a chance to try it out. 

O'Neill said in our conversation that before he and the other 
members of the Geological Survey left Ottawa the question had 
been discussed between them and their superiors as to what they 
were to do if Stefansson's conduct of the expedition did not appear 
to them to be the right one. He said that they had been assured 
that if they thought it advisable to disobey my orders, their posi- 
tion would be sustained at Ottawa. A day or two later O'Neill 
made that statement again to the police at Herschel Island, adding 
that from the point of view of the Geological Survey, he and several 
of the other men were mere passengers on my expedition and not 
subject to my orders beyond their own discretion. At Nome sev- 
eral months earlier O'Neill had said the same thing to Mr. Jafet 
Lindeberg and others, and it had been reported to me. I discussed 
it with the representative of the Naval Service, Mr. George Phillips, 
who advised me to dismiss the entire portion of the staff that had 
been furnished by the Survey. My conviction then was, however, 
that this was mere talk on the part of the men and that in their 
own interests they would refrain from bringing it to an issue. 



116 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Furthermore, I knew that the Chief of the Survey, Mr. R. W. 
Brock, had never intimated in any way to his men that they 
would be justified or supported in disobeying orders. O'Neill ad- 
mitted, in fact, on being questioned that it was not Mr. Brock 
who had said this, but some one whose name he declined to give. 

O'Neill's purpose in coming with the present party was to 
proceed up the Firth River for a survey. This was the survey 
planned and outlined in my dispatches to the Government from 
Point Barrow, and was one of the points where the plans as out- 
lined by Dr. Anderson coincided with plans as outlined by me. I 
had every interest in seeing the project itself carried through; what 
had disturbed me on meeting O'Neill's party was not that it should 
be on its way but rather that it should have in it Captain Bernard 
and Louis Olesen, both of whom should then have been engaged 
in helping Storkerson with the outfitting for the ice trip. Instead 
of these men O'Neill should have had with him other white men 
and local Eskimos with their dogs, an arrangement that would 
have served quite as well. 

Captain Bernard and Olesen now faced the unhappy question 
of whether they were going to obey my orders or Dr. Anderson's, 
Olesen took the position that Dr. Anderson was his real commander, 
there having been two expeditions with two independent heads, 
myself in command of the Karluk, and Anderson of the Alaska and 
Mary Sachs. Captain Bernard expressed the opposite view, so I 
did not argue Olesen's, for O'Neill had to have somebody to help 
him with his geological work and my opinion of Olesen was such 
that I was well pleased to let somebody else have him. 

It had been O'Neill's intention to proceed forthwith up the 
Herschel River, but as he had, in common with most of the men 
at Collinson Point, spent the entire winter in the house, he was so 
"soft" and became so badly laid up with the fifteen-mile walk from 
where he met me to Herschel Island that his departure for the 
mountains had to be deferred several days. Such '^softness" is the 
inevitable result of the time-honored polar explorer custom of spend- 
ing the winter in camp whether in study (where the officers teach the 
men), theatricals, and the publishing of busy-work newspapers 
known as Boreal Bugle or North Polar News, as was done by the 
British expeditions from Parry to Nares; or whether in reading, 
listening to phonographs and writing reams of home letters for next 
summer's mail, as has been the custom on recent expeditions. Such 
idleness makes muscles flabby and (what is worse) breeds discontent, 
personal animosities and bickerings of all sorts. That is one reason 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 117 

why I seldom spend more than a few days in any winter camp. An- 
other reason is that there is always plenty of work to be done. 

The following morning Captain Bernard and I started west 
along the coast and arrived that evening at Captain Martin And- 
reasen's, near the International Boundary, a distance of over forty- 
five miles. This is much more than an ordinary day's travel when 
one is carrying even moderately loaded sledges, but I had learned 
from O'Neill that our preparations at Martin Point were about a 
month behind schedule, so there was every reason for hurry. 

Captain Andreasen told me that on their way east O'Neill's 
party had stopped there and told him of the disobedience of my 
orders at Collinson Point and had informed him that the Govern- 
ment would undoubtedly, when they got the reports which were 
being sent in from Collinson Point, disavow all my actions. In 
particular they told him that if he sold me the North Star he 
would have to "whistle for his money," for the Government would 
never pay the draft. He said the idea had struck him pretty hard 
at the time but he had thought it over since and decided that he 
would take his chances. For one thing, he believed the draft 
would be paid; and for another, he could see that my plans of ex- 
ploration would be seriously handicapped if I could not get the 
North Star and he said he was enough interested in the project to 
be willing to take some risk to see the work successful. 

At Andreasen's I received a letter from Captain Cottle, sent 
to meet me to warn me of conditions. He said that members of 
my party had come to the Belvedere, had explained to him that the 
Government would not make good any arrangements I might make 
with him, and had endeavored to dissuade any of his men from 
helping us in any way. He said that he had, however, paid no 
attention to this and had assured his men that should I want 
their services I should be able to pay for them, and that he would 
himself pay them any bills which I might be unable to pay. Cap- 
tain Cottle had also had an interview with '^Duffy" O'Connor. 
O'Connor had been talking with members of the expedition and had 
decided to go back on his bargain to sell me his supplies, the reason 
being that he now feared non-payment of the draft that I was 
going to give him in return for the outfit. Cottle said he had 
assured O'Connor that the draft would be paid and urged him 
to stick to his bargain, saying that I was the commander of the 
expedition and that the Government would undoubtedly stand by 
whatever I did. 

This letter prepared me for my interview with O'Connor the 



118 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

next day. It seemed he had had several changes of mind. First, 
he had agreed in good faith to sell me the supplies; second, he 
had decided not to sell them when he heard from members of my 
expedition that I had no authority to buy them; third, he had de- 
cided he would sell them after all when he had talked with Captain 
Cottle ; and, fourth, he had finally decided that perhaps he had better 
not sell them, for after all it was about an even bet whether he 
would get drafts issued by me paid or not. After some talk, how- 
ever, and after his raising the price slightly to compensate him for 
the risk he now thought he was taking, I eventually closed the bar- 
gain. 

That same evening at the Belvedere I got more details of how 
everything was going. Captain Cottle had sent three or four of 
his men to help Storkerson with the work at Martin Point and had 
supplied him with everything he could spare. His influence had 
been especially useful in keeping our credit good with the Eskimos, 
who might otherwise have been afraid to work for Storkerson, think- 
ing they would not get paid. 

When I got to the Polar Bear I found that feeling ran pretty 
high. After telling me what they thought of the conduct of my 
people at Collinson Point, several of the party volunteered to do 
anything for me they could in helping on shore with the prepara- 
tions. Four of them also volunteered to go with me out over the 
ice if I should be unable to get enough satisfactory men from my 
own party. To make this definite, Mott handed me a letter saying 
that himself. Heard, Mixter and Silsbee would go with me wherever 
I would take them and that all supplies or resources of theirs were 
at my disposal. 

At Crawford's I met Storkerson. He confirmed everything told 
me by O'Neill and everything I had learned since, adding a good 
deal thereto. Several dog teams had been standing idle in our 
barn at Collinson Point. He had asked for some of these to use 
in preparations for the ice work but had been refused. Natives 
who had been willing to help him had been discouraged from doing 
so. No preparations had been made at Collinson Point and nothing 
had been done looking towards any possible ice journey we might 
make except that Mr. Chipman was rating some watches I had 
purchased from Captain Andreasen and sent to him for that pur- 
pose, and Mr. Johansen had overhauled the sounding machine, 
doing his best to put it in working order. Dr. Anderson had refused 
to hand over to Storkerson any of the supplies I had asked for, 
but had given him some socks, mittens, etc., for his own use. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 119 

telling him distinctly that he was not doing that in obedience to 
any instructions from me but that these garments were presents 
from him to Storkerson. Storkerson could not say too much of 
the help given him by Captain Cottle, Mr. Mott and, in fact, 
every one on the sfiips Belvedere and Polar Bear. But neither of 
these ships had dogs and one of Storkerson's great difficulties had 
been inability to hire dogs and sledges for freighting supplies from 
the Belvedere (about twenty-five miles away). He and the men 
he had been able to hire from the Belvedere and some Eskimos who 
were working for him had been compelled to harness themselves to 
the sledges, taking the place of dogs in hauling them. The very fact 
that they had to do this while several teams of the expedition's 
dogs stood fat and idle in the barns at Collinson Point, had done 
a great deal with the Eskimos to undermine my credit, for it 
seemed obvious to them from these circumstances that I was no 
longer in any control of the equipment or supplies of the expedition. 
From this they deduced that I should probably not be able to pay 
them if they worked for me, for, of course, Eskimos usually expect 
to be paid in goods. 

With the friendship and help of the whalers on the Belvedere 
and the party of sportsmen on the Polar Bear I might almost have 
ignored the Collinson Point difficulty and saved the precious time 
it took to go there (for the season was getting late) and started 
off on the ice directly. But I could not do this for two reasons: 
First, we needed the rifles, ammunition, light tents, scientific equip- 
ment, cameras, etc., which were in our stores and could not be se- 
cured from whalers. Further, for any journey out over the ice I 
should need the cooperation of the various ships the following 
summer, and I could not leave shore before making definite ar- 
rangements for the movements of the three vessels, and especially 
those of the North Star, for she was the one I had bought for the 
purpose of cooperating in my explorations of the Beaufort Sea. 
If I left shore while my authority was being openly defied I could 
rely on no cooperation from the ships in future — any written orders 
I might send would presumably be treated like the ones already 
disobeyed. Especially I must arrange for the North Star to follow 
me to Banks Island, for that had become an integral part of my 
plans. 

On the way from Martin Point to Collinson Point Captain 
Bernard and I spent the night with Crawford in his cabin at the 
mouth of the Ulahula River. I found then that while both he 
and Captain Bernard had at one time been dubious as to which 



120 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

side of the controversy they were to take, they were so no longer. 
They assured me that Charles Thomsen and Charlie Brooks (the 
steward on the Alaska) would be with me, and they believed Wil- 
kins would also. It was known that McConnell, who was just then 
absent on a trip to Point Barrow, would be on my side when he re- 
turned. In fact, they felt that as soon as the men really thought 
things out and came face to face with definite action, they would 
probably all decide to obey orders. 

We arrived at CoUinson Point just about dinner time. I told 
the men at once that we would postpone all discussion until eight 
o'clock, when the evening work was done and everybody could be 
present. 

When the time for discussion came, I asked Dr. Anderson 
whether he was taking the position which Louis Olesen had men- 
tioned to me at Herschel Island: that there were two expeditions, 
he in command of one still in existence and I in command of the 
other, now defunct; or whether he was taking the position outlined 
by O'Neill that he and several of the other men were merely pas- 
sengers with the expedition and had authority from Ottawa to 
disobey orders whenever they liked? 

It was Johansen who answered, saying that they considered 
Dr. Anderson to be in command of that part of the expedition 
which was left, that I had had authority only over the Karluk, 
and had none in the expedition at present and had better go home 
to Ottawa to report the failure of my side of the enterprise. With- 
out replying to him, I persisted in my inquiries of Dr. Anderson. 

Dr. Anderson eventually answered that my position was anal- 
ogous to that of certain kings of England who had been undis- 
putedly kings as long as their conduct was worthy of a king and as 
long as the people had confidence in them. But when the kings 
of England had become either insane or criminal they had been 
deposed and in some cases executed. While he disclaimed any 
intention of an execution, he thought that I had already shown 
by what I had done and by the plans which I had announced, 
especially the much-talked-of ''ice trip," that I was either not 
quite sane or was outlining plans which I had no intention or 
prospect of carrying out to any useful conclusion, but which would, 
nevertheless, use up a good deal of the resources of the expedition. 
He considered himself responsible to the Government for the car- 
rying out of certain plans of theirs and his, and he considered 
that he would be unable to carry them out if he acquiesced in 
mine. My motive in making the journey over the ice, he felt 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 121 

sure, was merely a desire for notoriety. It was well known that 
no useful purpose could be served by it, the theory on which it 
was based had the support of no well-known arctic explorer or 
any one on the expedition, and of no whaler or Eskimo, in so far 
as the soundness or tenability of the basic hypothesis was con- 
cerned. If I were not prevented I would doubtless go out on the 
ice with several sledges; we would have as many hardships and 
adventures as possible within a safe distance from land, would stop 
when we had had enough and come back, reporting that we had 
made a brave attempt but that the difficulties were insuperable. 
To all of which farce he and the rest had made up their minds 
they would not be parties. They were going to report everything 
in full to Ottawa and felt sure that the Government would sustain 
them. 

When Anderson's statement had been made, I asked him whether 
they intended to withhold by force supplies which my compan- 
ions and I needed for making the proposed trip: to which he re- 
plied that there would be no companions, for no one would go 
with me. 

Hereupon I made a sort of roll-call of the men to find out from 
each one whether he would obey my orders and go with me out 
on the ice if necessary. I began with Captain Bernard, for I 
knew he would say he would go. Obviously his prompt agreement 
surprised the others. I fear that some of the men had in a meas- 
ure deceived Dr. Anderson, misleading him into thinking he would 
have the whole-hearted support of everybody. Besides expressing 
enthusiastic support of my project, Captain Bernard informed the 
gathering that Crawford, too, would take part in the ice trip, if 
desired. The break in the ranks having been made, the others 
followed. Wilkins said he would go; Captain Nahmens of the 
Alaska expressed willingness to do anything I might direct; Thom- 
sen, who was not present, had sent word by Captain Bernard that 
he would volunteer; Johansen said he would go '4f I would make 
him certain pledges." When I asked what those were, they turned 
out to be merely that he was to be allowed to do scientific work. 
As Johansen could never conceivably have been taken on such a 
trip except for the purpose of doing the sort of work which he 
wanted me to promise he should be allowed to do, it was a simple 
matter to make him that promise. 

Chipman considered he could not g<f even for the ''support 
party," for it would make him too late for his topographical work 
on shore. In this I agreed. Had we been able to start two, three 



122 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

or more weeks earlier, as I had planned, he could have gone out 
with us for two weeks and still have been back ashore before the 
time he wanted to start his survey work (March 20). The same 
considerations applied to Cox. They should have been commenc- 
ing about now their coast survey so as to have the work done 
between Collinson Point and the Mackenzie delta before the thaws 
began. I had, in fact, brought with me from the Mackenzie delta 
(I forgot to mention above) Peder Pedersen with his dog team to 
pilot the topographers east. Pedersen had been about the Macken- 
zie delta for about twenty years and was an excellent guide. 

At this point Dr. Anderson agreed that they would all cease 
opposing my project if I would sign a statement, making certain 
promises and giving certain guarantees. When I asked what they 
would be, he said I must promise to let all the scientific men go 
on doing scientific work, — not to hinder the various members of 
the party in doing geological, topographical, zoological or other 
research. In general the demands were merely that the plans 
which I had always wanted to carry oUt should be carried out. 
The evident purpose of the demands was to make it appear that I 
had been compelled to allow them to do these things, whereas 
it had in fact been my desire all the time that they should do them. 
To sign the proposed document was a willing move, for, luckily, 
I had sent out from Point Barrow in October, or announced before 
the expedition ever started, that we intended to do all the things 
which they now asked me to promise I would not prevent them 
from doing. 

It was a rather tense two hours, but before eleven o'clock a 
modus vivendi had been agreed on. By eight o'clock the next 
morning every one was at work doing the things which he should 
have begun doing not the morning after I came home but a month 
earlier, on the morning after receiving my instructions from Stork- 
erson. 

Things done in a hurry are seldom done quite as well as when 
full time is allowed. Still, it is impossible to say too much for the 
energy and good will with which some worked with sewing ma- 
chines, others with needles, others with carpenter tools, and still 
others classifying and packing up supplies, no one now sparing 
any effort to get the preparations through as quickly as possible. 



CHAPTER XIII 

SHALL WE DARE TO MARCH NORTH? 

THE threatened mutiny had blown over and nothing was wholly- 
lost save a month of priceless time. For, although autumn 
and mid-winter may well enough be passed in mere prepara- 
tions, the precious months following January are the time for real 
work, and one of them was gone. There had also arisen, besides 
these differences between some of the men and me, bickerings among 
themselves that died down slowly. Old friendships were broken and 
wounds made that to this day remain unhealed. 

The causes of the difficulty were partly genuine differences of 
opinion and partly personal jealousies. The variance in opinion we 
have explained, the jealousies are gradually being forgotten and have 
no place in this book. 

When it had been decided that no active opposition would be 
made to my trip north over the ice, there came the question of 
whom I could get to go with me on the advance section of the trip. 
Of those who had volunteered the previous evening to follow orders 
(which really included all the men who could reasonably have been 
considered as material for the work) , the majority were either physi- 
cally ill-adapted for so protracted and serious an adventure, or else 
so badly needed ashore in connection with the operation of one of the 
ships or with helping in scientific work that they were not eligible. 
For an undertaking so serious as most people considered ours 
to be, no man is suitable unless he volunteers freely and has a 
degree of faith in the practicability of what is being attempted. 
Accordingly, as a preliminary to asking for volunteers, I went over 
the whole situation discussing every argument for and against. 
This was in conversations with individuals, now trying to get them 
to change their minds, now to stick to previous decisions. But 
for simplicity's sake I shall present the case here as I had presented 
it earlier in the year when first I attempted to get the men of the 
Alaska and Sachs interested in our geographic program. 

It was our greatest loss when the Karluk drifted off, that we 
lost with her several ambitious men whose romantic dispositions 

123 



124 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

had made it their dream to undertake some forlorn hope — if it were 
anything unusually, dangerous and difficult (so long as there was 
a fighting chance) then so much the better. 

The first thing that had to be stated was the scope of the ex- 
ploratory journey for which I wanted the men to volunteer. 

Briefly, the plan was to start north from Martin Point the first 
week in March (later experience showed that the first week in 
February would have been better) . We would travel north roughly 
along the 143rd meridian to 76° N. Latitude, if we could. If during 
this journey the ice over which we traveled was drifting west or 
northwest rapidly (4 miles per day or over) , we would return from 
our "farthest north" to Alaska by a route which (partly because 
of the assumed drift and partly to cover new ground) would be 
west of our outbound course. We would land presumably some- 
where between Cape Halkett and Point Barrow. Then, perhaps 
in May or June, we would follow the coast east and join our ships. 

But it was always possible we might find land on this journey. 
If it were small, we would map the coastline roughly and return 
to Alaska to join our ships in the late spring; if it were large, we 
would spend a year upon it. If such large land were fertile and 
had driftwood, we would live on the caribou or musk oxen found 
there and burn wood for fuel during the winter; but if it lacked 
driftwood and was for any reason devoid of land game, we would 
live on seals on the coast, eating them for food and burning their 
blubber for fuel. The following spring we would travel, according 
to convenience, back to Alaska or east over the sea ice to Banks 
or Prince Patrick Island, where the North Star was to be either 
near Cape Alfred or Land's End, and the Sachs between Cape 
Alfred and Cape Kellett. 

But if no current carried us west and if no land were found, 
we would, after getting as far north as possible, turn east when the 
approach of summer made sledge travel difficult, and land on Prince 
Patrick Island or near Cape Alfred (near Norway Island) on Banks 
Island. 

On the whole trip, whatever its duration or destination, we 
would live exclusively by hunting after the first five or six weeks 
which would use up any supplies we might bring from home. The 
trip would last twelve weeks at the shortest and a year or two years 
at the longest. 

This journey, all but the first fifty miles of a total distance of 
five to seven hundred miles, would be over an ocean area hitherto 
unexplored because the massing in it of ice even in summer had 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 125 

made it in the past impenetrable alike to exploring and whaling 
ships. But to our point of destination (if no land were found and 
if we did not drift west) there did exist a roundabout passage 
already charted and sailed by at least two ships — McClure in the 
Investigator in 1851 and Captain George Leavitt in the Narwhal 
in 1906. McClure proceeded along the coast of Banks Island to 
Mercy Bay. Leavitt returned by nearly a "great circle course" 
to Herschel Island. Captain Leavitt has told me that the Nar- 
whal was the only ship of the whaling fleet that ever went to 
Norway Island, but I have heard of others which went within 45 
miles of it — to Terror Island. 

The North Star, when the summer came, was to follow this 
well-known route, first east along the mainland to Cape Bathurst 
or near it, then north to Cape Kellett. It was especially here I 
expected the Star's light draft to be valuable — she would worm her 
way up the coast through the shallow shore lead between the land 
and any heavy ice that might be grounded offshore. On reaching 
Norway Island (N. Lat. 73%° approx.), she was to look for a 
beacon containing a message from us. If she found none she was 
to proceed to Prince Patrick Island if she could ; otherwise, she was 
to winter at the most northerly convenient point on Banks Island. 
If we were in the east somewhere we would find her sometime dur- 
ing the winter or spring 1914-15. If we did not, she was to do 
whatever exploring she could the spring of 1915. During the sum- 
mer 1915 she would return south if she had not found us. 

As more fully explained later, the Sachs was also to come to 
Banks Island, though she was not to try to come as far north 
along the coast as the Star. 

For a journey that might develop along any of the three plans 
outlined above (according to the natural conditions we found in the 
unexplored area), I wanted at least four volunteers — preferably 
more so that I might try them out while the support party were 
still with us, taking with me eventually those who turned out to 
enjoy the work most — which is another way of saying the best 
men. In polar work, physique is of some significance but tem- 
perament is far more important. 

In order to get my four or more volunteers I had to justify 
the hypothesis upon which the plan of the journey was based. 
Part of the ground did not have to be gone over in stating the case, 
for up to a point our methods would be essentially those of the 
Eskimos or of Peary. We would use Eskimo dogs, Nome sledges 
(the two we had), snowhouses for camps when the weather was 



126 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

cold and Burberry tents when it was warmer. At the start we 
would cook food brought from Nome with primus kerosene stoves, 
in the manner of Nansen or Scott. So far there was no difficulty, 
no reluctance among the men. 

But here strange issues arose. Other explorers had planned 
to turn back before the food and fuel brought along had been ex- 
hausted; we planned to go ahead without either, relying on the 
sea ice or on undiscovered and uninhabited lands to supply both 
indefinitely. This was where our plans branched off from those 
of previous explorers and where our men were dubious — or more 
than that. It was the striking out along a new path that I had 
to try to justify before I could expect any one to volunteer for the 
undertaking. 

I think any lawyer or other person used to pleading a cause 
will agree that the first principle of good argumentation is to con- 
cede in the beginning every point which the opposition are even- 
tually going to make you concede. Accordingly, I admitted freely 
at the start that my plan of traveling away from land an indefinite 
distance over moving sea ice, relying for food and fuel on animals 
to be secured by hunting, was considered unsound by, so far as I 
knew, every polar explorer and every critical authority on polar 
exploration. We were going to traverse the Beaufort Sea west of 
Banks and Prince Patrick Islands. This is the very region referred 
to specifically by Sir Clements Markham in his ''Life of Admiral 
McClintock" as "the polar ocean without life" when he is con- 
':rasting the comparatively fertile regions around Melville Island 
where musk oxen and caribou can be killed on shore and where 
there are resources of a sort, with the region west of Prince Patrick 
Island which, according to him, is devoid of all things that may 
sustain human life.* Markham could not be dismissed as an 
"armchair explorer," for he had been a member of one of the 
successful British polar expeditions at the time of the Franklin 
search and had later, in his position of President of the Royal 
Geographical Society and leading authority on polar matters, been 
in personal contact with every arctic explorer of note from the 
middle of the Nineteenth Century, up to and including Nansen 
and Peary. 

And, indeed, the testimony of Nansen and Peary was neither 

* Markham says about Prince Patrick Island: "It forms the boundary 
between the arctic paradise of Melville Island and the polar ocean (west of 
it) without hfe." Op. cit., p. 172. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 127 

equivocal nor friendly to my hypothesis. Nansen and Johansen 
made their remarkable journey first north from the Fram and 
then towards the Franz Josef Island group without any plan of 
sustaining themselves on the road by the products of hunting. 
They carried rifles and ammunition and made good use of these 
when they got into the shore waters of the Franz Josef group, 
but did not rely on them at all, while on the high seas. 

One need not go to any declaration on this point made by 
Nansen for his actions speak louder than words. The two of them 
started from the Fram driving three sledges, each with a large 
team of dogs. Any one used to dog driving would instantly object 
that it is not practical for two men to drive three sledges, but 
Nansen's answer is that they needed all the dogs they could take, 
for they intended to use them as food, first for each other and, in 
an extremity, for themselves. He looked upon dogs as portable, or 
rather self-carrying, provisions. 

He tells us that as they struggled northward he gradually be- 
came fonder and fonder of the more faithful of his dogs. Some 
of them worked more consistently and single-mindedly for his 
success every day than he did himself. This is the common ex- 
perience of all men of feeling who have used dogs in polar work. 
It is common experience also in more southern lands that we be- 
come fond of even the toy dogs that are. useless and incapable of 
doing us any service. How much more affection then would one 
in Nansen's position have for the dogs that labored for him more 
faithfully day by day than any but the rarest men would have 
had the moral strength to do, growing hungrier, thinner and weaker 
with each strenuous march but never sparing their strength, never 
whimpering, always eager to please and to do their best. 

But day by day the food became less in the sledges and the 
time drew nearer when some of these faithful friends had to be 
sacrificed on the altar of science and geographic discovery. At 
first he could kill the lazier ones without quite so much compunc- 
tion, and this made easier because more gradual the approach to 
the final horror of killing the ones he most dearly loved. Our 
imagination makes it easy for us to fill in the gaps, and there 
are few, in Nansen's descriptions of his own mental sufferings as 
he killed these friends of his and cut their exhausted bodies into 
pieces of food. We all agree that his feeling does him credit, 
although some wonder how any goal can be worth the deliberate 
planning of things like these. For this had been the plan not 



128 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

only before he left the ship on the particular journey, but even 
before he left Norway. He calls these the ''stern necessities of 
polar travel." 

From the point of view of the moralist, there are many angles 
from which to consider Nansen's plan and procedure. But from 
our present point of view the lesson is clear. No man with the 
sympathetic attitude toward dogs which Nansen describes himself 
as having would have killed them for food had there been any other 
food available. No matter how sympathetic a man may be 
towards all creation, he would surely rather kill a seal that is a 
perfect stranger than a dog he has brought up from puppyhood 
and that has been faithfully serving him for months. So it is 
clear that there were no seals for dog-feed that Nansen might 
have secured with his English rifle which he tells us was so good 
and had cost so much. In reading his book we all accept as neces- 
sary though deplorable the killing of dog to feed dog until the last 
survivor was killed for the explorers themselves (presumably) to 
eat. For it is a commonplace of our knowledge that, as Markham 
puts it, the polar ocean is "without life." 

It may be said about Nansen that he did not have the advan- 
tage of understanding Eskimo methods of seal hunting and possibly 
seals were there though he was unable to secure them. But here 
the testimony of Peary to the contrary is explicit. 

Peary was a great admirer of Eskimo methods of travel and 
employed them generally in his work. In outfitting his ships, for 
instance, he carried on some voyages little meat and on others none 
at all, for he relied on his Eskimo hunters to supply him with fresh 
meat for his crew and food of some sort, usually walrus, for his 
dogs. On all of his later journeys he had Eskimos with him to 
build the snowhouses, drive the dogs and to do practically all the 
menial work. He had spent nine winters in the North when he 
wrote his book, "The North Pole," describing his last and success- 
ful journey. In summing up his "fundamental principles" of suc- 
cessful traveling over the north polar pack, he says that when you 
start on a journey you must have in your sledges enough food to 
take you all the way to where you are going and all the way back 
to land. He says that you must similarly have enough fuel to 
take you where you are going and back again to shore. He was 
fully aware of the fact that the ocean waters near land are com- 
monly well supplied with game and that both in them and on the 
land you may expect to secure meat to eke out your stock of 
provisions. He always made use of this principle on his journeys, 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 129 

going so far to seaward that in one or two notable cases he had 
just barely enough food to reach land and had to get his first 
meals on shore from musk oxen or caribou. Peary also says that 
it is essential to success that your plans shall command the confi- 
dence of enough Eskimos to help you to carry them out. 

There is then no denying that Peary's testimony is against such 
ventures as I was planning. We were going north from Alaska into 
the Beaufort Sea which has been uniformly described by the British 
explorers and by the American, Leffingwell, and the Dane, Mikkel- 
sen — which means all the explorers who have been there — as the 
region of the heaviest polar ice known. This is presumably the 
least promising part of the whole polar regions for the method 
of living by forage; this is the section specifically described by 
Markham as ''the polar ocean without life." Seals might be 
found in shallow waters in certain parts of the polar basin even at 
some distance from land but they' certainly would not be found 
in abysmal depths. Leffingwell and Mikkelsen's soundings, taken 
on their journey north of 72° N. latitude in 1907, had given the 
presumption that the ocean north of Alaska would be deep, thus 
supplying with one more argument those who believed food could 
not be secured. 

To make the case against me all the stronger, there were the 
Eskimos. As mentioned above, Peary thinks that it is one of the 
essentials of a successful journey over the moving pack that you 
shall have Eskimos with you. And no Eskimo in northern Alaska 
was willing to go with us. Many of them were good friends of 
mine and some had worked for me on other expeditions. Nat- 
kusiak, for instance, had been with me for four years and was 
anxious to enter our service again. But he specified that he would 
not under any conditions go out on the moving ice. And so said 
all his compatriots. They considered being out on the sea ice dan- 
gerous enough through the accidents that are possible when, under 
stress of wind or current, the ice floes crush each other, rising on 
edge and going through other antics that are admittedly threaten- 
ing in spite of their ponderous slowness. But the main obstacle 
was the fear of starvation. Most of them said they would not go 
with us at all, and the most venturesome said that they would not 
consider going any farther than until half the food carried in the 
sledges had been eaten. They wanted to have the other half to 
bring them back ashore again, or to bring them at least into the 
familiar shore waters where there were seals. 

I used to tell them that both they and we knew how to get 



130 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

seals and that we would find no trouble in securing enough meat 
for food and blubber for both food and fuel, and that it would be 
much easier to travel light, relying on killing bears, than to haul 
sledges loaded heavily with provisions. But their answer was that 
there would be no seals or bears to kill. I tried to argue that they 
had no means of knowing there would be none, for neither they 
nor their ancestors had, so far as we knew, been in the habit of 
going more than five or at the most ten miles from land. Their 
reply was that their ancestors never went farther because they 
knew there was no food to be secured on the deep sea, and that 
their ancestors' wisdom was good enough for them. I tried to bribe 
them by promising more pay for a day at sea than they were getting 
for a week's work ashore, and got in answer the question: "What 
is the use of big pay if you die?" 

I could get no more support for my plans from the Eskimos 
than I could from geographers and explorers. 

Neither were the whalers more favorable. Many of them had 
been in these waters for twenty years and they were all of the 
same opinion as the Eskimos. The reason for this was that they 
had borrowed their opinions from the Eskimos. It appeared to 
them that ideas which they had borrowed twenty years ago and 
had held ever since without investigation had somehow received 
conclusive confirmation through the mere lapse of time. They 
told me that it "stood to reason" and was "well known" that the 
polar ocean in winter far from land was a barren and desolate 
waste without any resources. They were far more pessimistic than 
any ordinary explorer, for among us as a class it is conceded that 
men can travel with dogs and sledges over the ice. But the whalers 
commonly said that such journeys as Peary's could not be made in 
the waters north of Alaska. Not only would the difficulties of 
travel be so much greater that, even granting safety, progress 
would be much slower, but also the ice was so mobile that you 
would be in continual danger north of Alaska when you might be 
in comparative safety on the heavy and sluggish ice north of 
Greenland. 

The reply to their argument had to be based on the journeys 
of Baron Wrangel north of eastern Siberia and Leffingwell and 
Mikkelsen north of Alaska. Judging from their narratives and 
from Peary's, it is indeed much more difficult to make a good 
mileage near Alaska or Siberia than north of Greenland, mainly 
because of the strenuous currents that multiply by ten or by a 
hundred in the vicinity of Alaska and northeast Asia the leads 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 131 

which have to be crossed and which are in every icy ocean the 
most serious handicap that the explorer has to meet. These same 
strong currents break up the ice into more pressure-ridges, making 
sledge travel more difficult and the breakage of sleds more likely. 
Also when, by the opening of leads all around, you are com- 
pelled to cease traveling, the currents carry you with greater speed 
— usually in a direction that does not suit you — than the sluggish 
waters north of Greenland. But allowing all that, Wrangel and 
Leffingwell and Mikkelsen had at least shown that sledge travel 
was practicable. It was also reasonable to assume that the diffi- 
culties would be greatest near land, and would lessen when you got 
farther out to sea than even they had been. 

The whalers were all personally friendly and willing to help 
me when they could. They agreed that it was "my funeral," and 
were anxious to see that nothing prevented our making the trial; 
but they were equally eager in their advice that upon the first 
clear evidence of the absence of game at sea we should (if we ever 
got started) turn back towards shore and safety. They pointed 
out that it is not cowardice but discretion which yields gracefully 
to the inevitable. Captain Cottle and some of the other whaling 
officers, such as Mr. William Seymour, were willing to go so far as 
to urge eligible young men in the crews to take their chances with 
us. This was because they were good friends and good sports 
and not because of any real confidence in our program, although 
I think I came nearer convincing Captain Cottle than I did almost 
any of the members of our own expedition. 

But I had to admit that with the exception of such men as 
Captain Bernard, who with blind loyalty would go anywhere, Wil- 
kins who was ready for any adventure, and my friends at the 
Polar Bear who were sportsmen in the best sense of the word 
and looked upon our venture as one of the sort which might work 
out and ought not to be allowed to fail for want of men to try 
it out — apart from these, I had to admit that I had secured no 
support and that geographers, explorers, whalers and Eskimos 
alike were of the opinion that our plans were unsound and that 
the attempt to carry them out would be disastrous. 

This was the case of the opposition stated, as it seems to me, 
with fairness, allowing weight to every real argument. It looked 
like a strong case. 

In rebuttal I appealed to the science of oceanography which, 
although not so old as some, is as well established as most of the 
biological sciences. Thousands of observations taken by careful 



132 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

men had established the principle clearly laid down, for instance, 
by Sir John Murray in "The Ocean" and in his larger work, "The 
Depths of the Ocean," that the amount of animal life per cubic 
unit of ocean water is least in the tropics and increases gradually 
as you proceed towards either pole.* This is really a fact of com- 
mon observation, although the ordinary observer neglects to make 
the proper deduction. 

The great commercial fisheries of the world are not in the 
tropics. We get the name sardine but not all the sardines from 
Sardinia. The well known fisheries are in the north Atlantic, on 
the Newfoundland banks, in the North Sea and on the coasts of 
Norway and Iceland. That is where the cod, the herring, the 
haddock, and the halibut come from. When the ornithologist 
explains to you why there is guano on a certain part of the coast 
of Chile, he tells you that the cold waters from the Antarctic bring 
in the tremendous quantities of marine animals upon which the 
birds live that deposit the guano. At the marine-biological station 
at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts, you learn that the polar current 
sets in to that coast more at certain seasons than at others and 
that marine life is most abundant when it does. Millions of seals 
and of walrus live on northern fish and Crustacea and have to be 
hunted mainly in subarctic and arctic (or antarctic) waters by those 
who pursue them in ships for their hides, ivory and oil. Indeed, the 
chemist and marine biologist are both ready to explain that the 
conditions of rapid chemical change and decay are such in warm 
waters that an animal or plant that dies is soon resolved into its 
elements and removed from the domain of food; while if a similar 
organism dies in cold water its body floats around for a consid- 
erable time ready to be devoured by other organisms.** This in 
simple terms is the explanation of why more animal life can sub- 
sist in cold than in warm ocean water — there is more to eat. 

But here the critic can object that the oceanographers them- 
selves, such as Sir John Murray or Nansen, while pointing out 
the tremendous abundance of animal life at the outskirts of the 
polar ice, assert that it becomes rare when you penetrate far within 
the ice-covered area. On such a point men like Murray can 
reason only upon a priori grounds, inference and hearsay; but 
Nansen can appeal to the testimony of his own drift in the Fram, 

*The Ocean/' by Sir John Murray, Home University Library, New York 
and London, pp. 162-164. 

** See "Fishes of the High Seas," by J. T. Nichols, in The National Ma- 
rine, July, 1920, pp. 26-34. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 133 

and he tells us that he found Crustacea and in general all small 
animal life rare when you get far within the ice.* Without mini- 
mizing the great wealth of knowledge brought back to us. by the 
Fram at the end of her first voyage, I would provisionally in my 
reasoning assume that Nansen's failure to find animal life in great 
abundance was due not to its actual absence so much as to its 
presence having escaped his observation. 

That animal life in the ocean is extraordinarily abundant on 
the edges of the ice-covered area I have said is well known. It is 
equally well known that there are great currents that sweep into 
the Arctic and under the ice to take the place of the water that 
flows south in the form of cold currents. It is asserted that fish 
do not take kindly to the ice covering over the sea at high lati- 
tudes. The polar ocean is generally several miles in depth, and 
what difference should it make to a fish though there be numerous 
pieces of ice floating on top? When the presence of ice on such 
lakes as Winnipeg, Bear or Baikal does not appear to interfere with 
the happiness of the fish that live in them, then why should we 
assume that it does in the ocean? You can scarcely think of 
scum or dust so thin on top of a basin of water as not to be 
proportionately thicker than five or ten or even fifteen feet of 
sea ice on top of fifteen thousand feet of ocean water. 

But even if all the fishes were to turn tail and swim south when 
they came to the edge of the ice, there would still remain the tre- 
mendous quantity of plankton or floating life which without voli- 
tion of its own is carried north under the ice with every movement 
of the upper two or three hundred fathoms of the sea surface 
(any life deeper than that would be unreachable by seals). Nan- 
sen's own theory of drifting across the polar basin, which was so 
triumphantly vindicated by the Fram, postulates that any object 
found at one edge of the icy area this year will have drifted 
across and will be found at the other edge two or three or five 
years from now. If the given object drifts across, evidently the 
water in which it floats has also been drifting across and in that 
water at the beginning of the voyage were living myriads of float- 
ing plants and animals. 

Why is it logical to assume that these will all have died and 
disappeared before a particular cubic unit of water in question 
gets into even the center of the inaccessible area? Even were it 
to die and disappear when the center of the inaccessible area is 

*See article by F. Nansen in Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica; title "Polar Regions." 



134 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

reached, it would have by then lasted long enough to serve all 
our purposes. We were going to start from that edge of the ice 
from which the drift is assumed by Nansen and others to be north- 
westward or northerly; we should assuredly have with us as fellow 
travelers all these docile animals that allow the currents to carry 
them where they please. 

It was thus I reasoned that the animals upon which seals live 
will be found everywhere under the ice of the polar sea. And 
if the feed is there, the seals will follow the feed. We can travel 
along with confidence, killing seals as we need them, using the lean 
and part of the fat for food and the rest of the fat for fuel. For 
a seal that weighs two hundred pounds will give something like 
eighty pounds of meat and bones, twenty or thirty pounds of waste 
and nearly a hundred pounds of blubber. When you have killed 
enough seals to furnish you with the lean meat needed for men and 
dogs and when the men and dogs have eaten all the seal's fat they 
care for, there will be left over blubber for fuel to be used extrava- 
gantly, with still a remainder to be thrown away. 

Does it seem that even if the seals were there we might not 
be able to get them? I am glad to say that none of the members 
of our expedition raised that point very seriously. Both Storkerson 
and I had lived for many years with Eskimos. They remembered 
that we knew every trick there is of detecting and securing seals 
and, further, that these tricks are easily acquired. It is true, al- 
though puzzling, that it is possible to live in close contact with 
people who are doing certain things and still to keep the mental 
attitude that we ourselves undoubtedly could never learn to do 
them. The feeling is familiar not only to men who hire Indian 
guides to take them miraculously through the wilderness, but to 
those who own cars or hire taxis and yet feel that their driving 
and repair are things in which they could never become adept. 
But none of our men supposed Storkerson or me to belong, so far 
as seal hunting went, to the class of those who own cars and can- 
not drive them. 

At this point it was common for my auditors to say something 
to the effect that, while this reasoning sounded all right in a warm 
room, they did not think they cared to risk their lives upon it. 
Rather than an argument ever so sound, they preferred the evidence 
of eye witnesses, such as Nansen and Peary, who had been there 
and come back with testimony of the absence of seals. It was 
unreasonable to assume that all polar travelers before our time 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 135 

had been fools and incapable of finding this royal road to ex- 
ploration. 

To these objections I could reply sincerely that I yielded to 
no one in my admiration for Peary and that he had been my friend 
and adviser for many years. But according to plans which he 
considered (and found) adequate to the task of reaching the Pole, 
Peary had started from Grant Land with food enough to take him to 
his destination and back again; there was no reason why he 
should stop to hunt for seals. Furthermore, Peary himself does 
not ever appear to have hunted seals by the Eskimo method and 
probably was not familiar with the technique of it and especially 
with the unobtrusive signs by which the expert hunter can detect 
the presence of seals. The reply to me was that Peary had Eskimos 
with him who were presumably expert seal hunters; to which it 
could be countered that, while Peary could speak to his Eskimos in 
the jargon which he used for intercourse with them and while 
they would always understand him and be able to reply in the same 
jargon, he never tried to learn their language, or, as he calls it, 
their "secret language." * At the end of a day's travel the Eskimos 
might very well have discussed with each other in the vernacular 
or "secret language" the seal signs they had noticed during the 
day and Peary would not have known what they were talking 
about. For it would not have occurred to him to ask, having con- 
cluded a priori that there were no seals; and it would not have 
occurred to them to speak, for they would not have supposed him 
to be interested. Peary's Eskimos, too, were usually in a hurry to 
get back home, and if they had supposed him interested and had 
told him about the presence of seals it might have delayed the 
journey and kept them away longer than they liked. Possibly the 
conditions out at sea were so different from those they were used to 
around Smith Sound that they themselves may have failed to notice 
the seal signs. On this point I cannot speak, for I have never vis- 
ited Smith Sound, and no one who has has had enough command 
of the technique of seal hunting to write instructively about it. At 
any rate, no such observations have been published. 

It is possible for a business man to buy a passage from New 
York to Liverpool and to cross the Newfoundland banks without 
ever seeing a codfish or any evidence to lead him to think that 
codfish are there. But a fisherman on the banks would have no 
doubt of the presence of codfish nor any trouble in getting them. 

*See "The North Pole," by Robert E. Peary, p. 50. 



136 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

It seemed to me that in an analogous way even keen observers like 
Nansen and Peary, preoccupied with the carrying-out of plans 
having nothing to do with seals, might have traveled for months 
over an ocean full of them without ever suspecting their presence. 

But our plans did have to do with seals very definitely. By 
the theory that governed them seals were there. We would there- 
fore look for them, and if they were there we should know how 
to get them. The conclusion to me had an appearance of soundness. 
If it were to work out, we would have solved the problem- of com- 
missariat, hitherto the crucial difficulty in polar exploration. 

But at the end of the most elaborate and logical argument the 
ordinary ''hard-headed" listener would still demur on the changeless 
ground that all eye witnesses were on the other side. If the thing 
contended for were so, some one would have discovered it long 
ago; there must be a flaw in the reasoning somewhere. Most of 
the men said they declined to go on any such enterprise, and that 
public opinion would sustain them in their refusal. 

Perhaps they were right about public opinion. Perhaps they 
were right in their own decision. Whether we think so or don't is 
a matter of temperament. 

It was on the basis of this reasoning as I have stated it that 
some of my local judges came to the conclusion that my plan 
of an extended journey where men and dogs would live on seals 
or die without them amounted to insanity and justified them in 
their general lack of confidence in all my plans, at least in so far 
as they hinged in any way on this central idea. As a matter of 
fact, most of them did hinge on it. 

I pointed out that when those plans had been laid before the 
National Geographic Society in Washington, the Museum of Nat- 
ural History in New York, the Geographic Congress at Rome, and 
Sir Robert Borden and his Cabinet at Ottawa, the proposal to 
try ''living by forage" had always been the central idea and it 
was exactly this that the Canadian Government had sent me North 
to try out. 

The Karluk had carried a sumptuous outfit of the orthodox 
kind with which we could have outfitted parties for ice exploration 
by any of the well-known and often-tried methods. It had in fact 
been my intention to use substantially the Peary methods when 
within 500 or 600 miles of our base, and then to extend the length 
of the journeys both in mileage and time by continuing ahead and 
living by forage instead of turning back when the last of perhaps 
twenty sleds we had started with were empty. But the Karluk 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 137 

was gone and we had only two good sledges to start with; the 
system of relays of many support parties was out of the question. 
It was now a case of either letting the geographic program go or 
else trying out the method of '^living off the country" while doing 
with that program what we could. 

How thoroughly beyond the scope of our diminished equipment 
the Peary system of relays or support parties was, can most clearly 
be shown by a brief review of Peary's trip to the North Pole. 

When Peary started north from Cape Thomas Hubbard he 
had before him a journey of just over 400 miles and back. Accord- 
ing to his calculations, he needed for this 139 dogs, 24 men and 
19 sledges. The sledges were loaded mainly with food and fuel 
for, on his theory that you have to carry with you everything you 
are going to use, clothing, camp gear and the like had to be cut to 
the minimum. For 24 men he carried only two rifles. On other 
journeys he had carried only one and had even sawed off half the 
barrel to make it lighter. I believe he carried only one pair of 
field glasses for the entire party. No matter what the latitude, 
it is always uncomfortable to sleep at night in the clothes you 
wear in the daytime, but the saving of weight was so essential 
that he permitted the carrying of no bedding and he and the men 
slept in their clothes. 

As they traveled north the sledges rapidly became lighter. The 
139 dogs ate a pound each per day, the 24 men ate two pounds 
each, and there was a certain amount of fuel consumed. Before 
many days several "standard loads" of 600 pounds each had been 
used up, leaving that many empty sledges. Peary would send these 
back with the poorest dogs and the men who were for one reason 
or another least suited to the work, giving them just enough food 
for a rapid journey ashore. A few days later a few more sledges 
would be empty and similarly sent back. No man ate an ounce 
more than he was entitled to, seldom was an extra ounce of fuel 
used to warm even the coldest camp; the men worked to the limit 
of their strength and the dogs beyond the limit, so that one by 
one they fell behind on the trail and either lay there frozen or 
were fed to the other dogs. By this system Peary finally found 
himself with three sledges loaded with provisions and with three 
or four of the men best adapted to traveling, within striking dis- 
tance of the Pole. He made it and he got back safely. But he 
has said to me that had the Pole been a hundred miles farther away 
it probably could not have been reached with this method in a 
way to provide for a safe return ashore. 



138 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

On this point I saw no reason to disagree with Peary. Four 
or five hundred miles away from the base and back seems to be 
about the limit of a journey that can be made with that system. 
But though the North Pole is only about 400 miles away from the 
nearest land upon which a base can be established, there are many 
other points within the polar regions that are much more remote 
from a base on any known land and these would be unattain- 
able by the Peary system. It is in this connection that we have pre- 
pared the map of comparative inaccessibility of various points 
within the polar regions which is published in this volume.* 

This consideration of the Peary system, which is admirable 
within its scope, shows clearly why we could not possibly have 
carried on by that method. To begin with, to be successful in the 
task entrusted to us by the Government we had to make journeys 
longer than either the one Peary made, or any he considered the 
system capable of. And then we had not the men nor the sledges, 
though we could doubtless have purchased the dogs. It was liter- 
ally a choice between the absolute failure of our geographic pro- 
gram and the testing of the method of ''living on the country." 

As a last plea I used to point out to the men that I had an- 
nounced the intention to live by forage on the sea ice not only in 
the official statements of the expedition but also in newspaper 
interviews, in speeches made to ''Canadian Clubs" and other or- 
ganizations just before leaving, and, in fact, in every public state- 
ment made by me on the point. They had known from the start, 
therefore, that I might call on them for just this work. Some of 
them replied they had never supposed this was anything but news- 
paper talk. It might perhaps be justifiable to use this argument to 
create public interest and secure funds for an expedition. But a 
man's life is the only one he has and he can not be expected to risk 
it lightly. 

But I did get volunteers enough for the minimum number of 
assistants needed. To these loyal men, poets enough in their out- 
look on life to be willing to take new risks that new lands might 
be found, new seas charted and a new idea tried out, I owe grati- 
tude for support at a critical time. And no less do I owe it to 
Storkerson, Andreasen and Castel whom I was able to engage 
from outside. Their consistent support when they were with me, 
their energy and discretion when they had to carry out tasks on 
their own, enabled us finally to do without the Karluk most of the 
geographic work that we had been expected to do with her help. 

*See ante, p. 8. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 139 

No courage nor hard work can replace years of technical train- 
ing, nor can delicate scientific instruments be improvised with a 
jackknife. There was no replacing McKinlay, Malloch or Murray 
in the northern section any more than Beuchat could be replaced 
in the southern. But the lands were discovered, the seas were 
sounded and the field covered though most of the detailed scientific 
work has to remain for the future. 

The men of the expedition who were willing to go with me as 
far as I might care to go myself were Bernard, McConnell (as I 
knew, though he was not now at Collinson Point) and Wilkins. 

Those who were willing to go on the support party were James 
Crawford, Frits Johansen, Otto Nahmens and Charles Thomsen. 
There were also the four volunteers from the Polar Bear, but it 
had always been understood that their volunteering was to take 
effect only if I proved unable to get men otherwise. That storm 
had now blown over. 

Of those members of the expedition who did not volunteer for 
the advance work, many were not expected by me to do so because 
they had too important work to do ashore either of a scientific 
nature or in connection with managing the ships or camp. Some 
were also physically disqualified. And I was able to get all the 
men I thought I should want. What I needed from the others 
was merely the cooperative spirit and the help of a few of them as 
a relay party to go a short distance from shore to help us through 
the worst belt of broken ice, perhaps fifty miles. 

Of the men I have mentioned as willing to go with me on the 
ice, all were at Collinson Point or in the vicinity except McConnell. 
He had been sent shortly after Christmas from Collinson Point 
to Cape Halkett, a distance of about 150 miles, to fetch Jenness 
down to Barter Island for archaeological work to be done in the 
spring. McConnell should have returned long ago and we were 
beginning to worry a little about him. While the journey was by 
no means an agreeable one to make during the absence of the 
sun, there was little chance for anything to have gone wrong. But 
I wanted McConnell to be of the company and we needed badly 
the good dogs he had with him and his sled, a better one for the 
use of our support party than the one we would have to take in 
its place. 

It was on the Belvedere I got Aarnout Castel. I had first seen 
him as a sailor on the Bowhead under Captain John Cook in 1906 
and had before now found reason to consider him an excellent 
man. Partly through the good offices of Captain Cottle, but mainly 



140 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

because Castel was made of the right stuff, he volunteered for the 
advance work. 

I set much store by Ole Andreasen, a brother of Captain Matt 
Andreasen. I did not really know exactly the sort of man Ole 
was going to be, but he had at least the admirable quality of cheer- 
fulness under all circumstances and an absolute inability to see 
how anybody could be lonesome anywhere, no matter how isolated 
or remote from various things that ordinary people enjoy. This 
I knew from my experience with him on my second expedition 
(spring, 1912). I suppose that those who philosophize on such 
things would say he had '^resources within himself" which are lack- 
ing in most of us. 

Captain Bernard, who was going in our support party, was an 
excellent dog driver and one of the best traveling companions I 
have ever had in spite of his fifty-six years. It was largely thanks 
to him that our sledges were in as good condition as they were, 
for among other accomplishments he was an excellent sled maker. 

The last man to be mentioned of those I eventually selected 
for the start out on the ice was Frits Johansen, marine biologist. 
In a sense he was the most important because, in addition to his 
other work, he was expected to make whatever oceanographical or 
biological observations he could. At one time on the support jour- 
ney he got so interested that, contrary to his feelings when he was 
on land, he wanted to continue with us to the limit of our journey. 
But both his own judgment and mine was that the expedition 
could not afford to have him do this, for he had a great deal of 
biological paraphernalia ashore which nobody but he understood 
and of which he alone could make full use — as he eventually did, for 
his scientific results were perhaps the most voluminous of the expe- 
dition. 




December, 1913 to December. 1914. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE ICE JOURNEY BEGINS IN MISFORTUNE AND DIFFICULTY 

THE third day after I got home everything was ready for the 
journey to Martin Point and thence out on the ice. But now 
nature took a hand. One of the worst gales that any of us 
had ever seen blew up from the southwest. Not only was the wind 
terrific for two or three days, but the temperature was lower, con- 
sidering the wind velocity, than I had previously seen it on the 
mainland of North America (37° below zero F. with a wind we 
estimated at 60 to 80 miles an hour), although I have since seen 
worse weather out on the Canadian islands. This wind delayed 
us for two or three days, at the end of which our caravan started. 
We arrived in two days. 

On the way to Martin Point we saw to seaward black patches 
in the sky, the reflection in the clouds of open water not far off- 
shore. From the information of Eskimos, whalers and our own 
people alike, we knew that for a month or two previous to this 
the ice to an unknown distance from land had been lying quiet 
and fairly level. It must have been unbroken for twenty or thirty 
miles out at least, for no water sky had been seen from shore even 
in the far distance since shortly after Christmas. If we only could 
have started two or three weeks earlier, as had been planned, 
or even a week earlier, we could have made rapid progress away 
from land for the first twenty or thirty miles. This is the most 
critical belt, for the obstructions to travel are usually greater the 
nearer you are to shore. 

Now the prospects did not look good, for the blackness was 
reflected so high in the clouds that it was clear the open water was 
not more than four or five miles from the beach. What we had to 
hope for was a spell of cold and calm weather, giving young ice a 
chance to form over the open stretches out of which the wind had 
blown the old ice, drifting it to seaward. But that was just the 
sort of weather we were not having and did not soon get. The early 
part of the gale had been at a temperature of 37° F. below zero, 
which is extraordinary for a wind of over 80 miles an hour, as 

141 



142 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

this was at its maximum. But as the gale proceeded the tempera- 
ture had risen. Now that it was over the weather kept so warm 
that, although the season was still winter, the temperature was 
actually that of spring. At times it came almost up to the freezing 
point. This was pretty serious, for when the ice has some tendency 
to movement, as is usual after a gale, it is not likely to be set fast 
solidly enough for travel by a frost of less than ten or twenty degrees 
below zero. 

On Sunday, March 22, 1914, we made the start out on the ice 
northward from Martin Point. This was about three weeks or a 
month too late. The sun was getting higher every day and spring 
was approaching, when on the ice of the polar sea no man can work 
with safety or comfort. But with the failure of the Karluk behind 
us it was now or never. Neither the Government at Ottawa nor 
the men of our own party would have continued their support had 
we failed to accomplish something that spring of 1914. 

Besides the men of our own party, we had at Martin Point vis- 
itors from the two whaling ships wintering in the vicinity, Heard, 
Mott and Silsbee of the Polar Bear; Baur, Hazo and McKin- 
non of the Belvedere. These were some of the men without whose 
assistance and encouragement we could not have been ready to start 
even then and probably could not have started at all. I remember 
distinctly the warmth of their farewells an*d good wishes, but my 
recollection of the weather seems less acute, or at least different from 
theirs. Neither my diary nor my memory tells anything of a ter- 
rific gale that was raging, yet Mr. Mott in a magazine article gave 
this account of our departure: "When Stefansson started the ice 
was soft and the weather bad, with a strong wind blowing. It 
was so bad that we felt we couldn't go home that day, although our 
camp was only ten miles away. It was an awful day. The wind 
was howling and the snow was swirling as they pulled out into the 
teeth of the blizzard, and before they had gone fifty yards they were 
out of sight. We fought our way back to our tents, thankful we 
weren't in their places. The next day I wrote in my diary that I 
never wanted to be an explorer, that they earned all the glory and 
all the honor that the world can give them. It is worse than being 
in the trenches." 

This is the point of view of a man who was present when we 
started and who wrote of it later, after going home and serving the 
full American part of a war we were never even to hear of for more 
than a year. Unfortunately, as I believe, for Mr. Mott, the arctic 
blizzards which he encountered had always found him in the vicinity 




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•>:^m 



'imm^ -^t 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 143 

of his ship or some Eskimo house into which he could retreat, and 
where in a cozy interior his mind was free to endow the gales out- 
side with the horrors that those of us fail to notice who fight them 
daily as an incident of our work. My weather entry for that day is, 
"Clear, snow drifting, wind N. E. 30°;" which being translated 
means that although the snow was whirling around us enough to 
explain the statement that we soon disappeared from sight, there 
was clear sky to be seen overhead. 

My diary does go into some detail as to equipment. The first 
sled was driven by Captain Bernard with seven dogs and a load of 
1,020 pounds; Wilkins came next with seven dogs and 789 pounds; 
then Castel with five dogs and 644 pounds; and Storkerson last 
with six dogs and 960 pounds. Andreasen and Johansen held them- 
selves ready to assist any of the teams that might get stuck in a 
snowdrift or to right any overturned sled. It was my part to go 
ahead carefully picking a way between the masses of jagged, up- 
turned ice that make the surface of the northern seas in winter not 
the level expanse those may imagine who have seen only lake ice, 
but something between a system of miniature mountain ranges and 
the interior of a granite quarry. 

This first day everything went as well as could be expected. The 
gale of the 17th had broken up badly all the offshore ice beyond the 
six-mile limit, so that at the end of three hours we came to the meet- 
ing line of the land-fast ice and the moving pack. Seal hunters 
from the Belvedere and Polar Bear had assured us that for twenty 
or thirty miles offshore there had been since Christmas no move- 
ment of the ice before the 17th, but now it was an archipelago of 
large ice islands floating in a sea of mush and water and moving 
past us to the east at the rate of half a mile an hour. 

We had some hope of heavy frost that night. Ten or fifteen 
hours of twenty or thirty degrees below zero would, had the wind 
ceased, have solidified everything into ice possible to travel over, 
although scarcely with safety, for the chief danger zone in polar ex- 
ploration is the mush belt where the pack grinds itself into pieces 
against the edge of the land-fast ice. But the temperature in spite 
of calm did not go below zero, and although there was little motion 
in the ice outside of us, the next morning the conditions were by 
no means ideal. By pressure from seaward the ice cakes were 
heaped against each other and against the shore floe, and as the 
season was too late for awaiting more favorable opportunity, we 
struck off on this insecure ice. For about a mile and a half we went 
on, crossing from cake to cake where the corners touched and occa- 



144 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

sionally over narrow cracks filled with loose mush ice that bore 
up the dogs and sledges, but compelled the men to lean their weight 
on the handle-bars to prevent themselves from breaking through. 
Even at this, some of them broke through enough to wet their feet. 

Then our progress was stopped not by adverse ice conditions 
but by the most serious and most nearly fatal accident I have 
ever seen in the North. Captain Bernard was still driving the lead- 
ing sled just behind me when we passed over a little ice ridge not 
more than three feet high. From off this ridge on to the level ice 
beyond there was a sheer drop of between two and three feet, which 
is not a serious circumstance ordinarily, so that I did not even look 
around. But Captain Bernard unfortunately had his hands on the 
handle-bars and when the sled dropped failed to let go. By the 
weight of the sled he was pulled forward and fell on his forehead, 
striking the cross-piece between the handle-bars. There was a 
slight outcry, probably from some one else. When I looked around 
Captain- Bernard was sitting on the level ice holding one hand to 
his forehead. A moment later he removed his hand, being about to 
stand up, when a flap of his scalp dropped down over his eyes, ex- 
posing the skull and hiding nearly all the face above the mouth. 
He had cut the scalp in an inverted curve from about an inch above 
the outer corner of the left eye to a little outside the outer corner 
of the right eye, the arch of the cut passing up over the entire 
forehead. 

We hastily pitched a tent, took some stitches in the wound, and 
carried the Captain ashore in an empty sled. Two men were at the 
handle-bars to keep it from upsetting and two were at the front end 
to ease it over the rough ice. In spite of this the Captain received 
a great deal of jolting which further increased the bleeding, so that 
by the time we got him ashore his underwear was soaked with blood 
and his boots nearly full of it, while his strength was so diminished 
that he had to be helped into the house. The marvel was that he 
did not once lose consciousness. 

Next morning it appeared both that the Captain's wound would 
probably not prove serious and that we could not in any event do 
him any good by staying, so we started off again. The other men 
had meantime returned to the edge of the land-fast ice where they 
waited for us. It was true misfortune that Captain Bernard could 
not go on with the journey, for he was a good man from all points 
of view and his enthusiasm and cheerfulness were especially valu- 
able. His place was taken by Crawford, and McConnell was taken 
on as an extra man. He had caught up to us on the ice just before 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 145 

the accident to Captain Bernard. He had arrived at Collinson Point 
several days after we left there and, although told he could prob- 
ably not catch up, he pluckily started after us, tired as he was from 
the long trip from Barrow. Unfortunately he had no means of 
knowing how badly we needed the sled he had been using, so he 
left it at <Collinson Point for a lighter one with which he pushed 
on to Crawford's camp at the Ulahula mouth. Here Crawford had 
joined him to help him on till he overtook us. The morning of 
March 23 when we had, as we thought, left all communication with 
land behind, he arrived at our camp while we were still asleep to 
give us the Barrow mail and beg for a chance to go along. Later 
it was he who volunteered to take the 14 stitches that were neces- 
sary to close the Captain's wound. And a good job he made of it. 

Once more we were ready and fortune was against us. In an 
ordinary arctic winter the last two weeks of March should have 
an average temperature of twenty or thirty degrees below zero, 
but from the 20th to the 30th of that March we had- weather that 
seldom went down to zero and occasionally almost up to the thaw- 
ing point. The ice outside the six-mile wide land floe, which had 
been broken up by the gale of the 17th, was now no longer subject 
to strong currents and was moving very sluggishly. It could have 
been set fast and firm by a single night of good frost. But this 
good frost refused to come. 

Just what moving sea ice is like may interest the general reader. 
A certain amount of ice in winter is frozen fast to the beach, and 
in some cases for a few hundred yards and in other cases several 
miles is grounded solidly upon a shallow bottom. But as you pro- 
ceed away from land you come to what we call the "floe," or place 
where the edge of the shelf frozen fast to the land meets the moving 
pack. When the pack is in rapid motion, as after a severe gale, its 
speed on the north coast of Alaska may be as much as two miles 
an hour, rarely a little more. The ice masses are of all sizes and 
all thicknesses. When a heavy floe moves along the edge of the 
land ice in such a way as to rub against it, we say that the pack is 
"grinding." Sometimes this is a terrific phenomenon. Instead of 
a description of my own, I shall borrow one from the diary of Mc- 
Connell who now saw it for the first time. 

"In the afternoon the Chief and his right-hand man, Mr. Stor- 
kerson, went over to the lead, and when he returned he told Wilkins 
and me that we could see a sight worth seeing by walking over there, 
but not to go too near the edge. It was a magnificent and awe- 
inspiring sight that met our eyes. The whole field on the other side 



146 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

was in motion to the eastward and often would come in contact with 
the floe on which we stood. Then the rending and tearing and 
crushing of the floes was almost deafening, and pieces of ice larger 
than an ordinary house would be tumbled about like corks in the 
water. The opposite floe would come tearing along at a speed of 
over a mile an hour, and when it encountered the land-fast ice 
something was sure to happen. Ridges thirty feet high and more 
would be formed one moment, and tumble back into the sea the 
next as the pressure from the moving field was abated. Wilkins 
took my photograph with one of these ridges for a background. 
Then we returned to the tent with the first inkling, on my part at 
least, of the resistless power of the arctic ice in motion because of 
either current or wind. It was a weird and impressive sight. I 
was a little sobered by it." 

The grinding of the floes against the land-fast ice and against 
each other makes what we call the ''mush ice," which may be a soft 
slush or may consist of fragments the size of your fist, the size of 
a kitchen range or of a house. As the floes spin about open patches 
of water of all shapes and sizes will form, to close again when the 
floes continue their revolution. After such a heavy gale as we had 
just had, pieces more than a dozen acres in area are rare in the 
vicinity of land ice, but the farther from land the larger the pieces, 
and fifty miles from shore the hardest gale will leave most of the 
ice still in the form of big, coherent masses^ miles in diameter. Nat- 
urally, when the edges of such floes meet, a certain amount of mush 
ice is formed, no matter what the distance from shore. 

It is evident that no camp on sea ice is ever entirely safe. Even 
fifty miles from shore a crack may open in the middle of the floor 
of your snowhouse or tent, though the chances of this decrease with 
the distance from land. The original crack may be several hun- 
dred yards from camp, yet when the two floes begin to grind past 
each other the edges of both tend to break up. The greatest danger 
comes when the ice mass that strikes yours is traveling so that the 
lines of motion of the adjacent floe and of your floe intersect at 
some such small angle as ten to thirty degrees. Huge pieces are 
then torn rapidly off the edges of both floes if they are of similar 
thickness, or off the edge of the weaker. If you happen to be 
camped on the weaker one it behooves you to move quickly. Pieces 
of your floe the size of a city lot will rise on edge and tumble to- 
wards you, and the ice around camp and under will begin to groan 
and buckle and bend. Where it bends little rivers of sea water 
come rushing in, and where it buckles small pressure-ridges form. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 147 

Since the relative speed of the floes can never differ by much more 
than two miles, the rate at which you have to flee is never more 
than two miles an hour and commonly less. Still, if the breaking 
up begins when you are sleeping, the awakening is abrupt and some- 
thing has to be done in a hurry. 

We have learned to make our winter camps so comfortable that 
when on land we always undress at night, and on the sea ice we do 
so whenever the camp site seems to be comparatively safe. One 
important aid to safety is that the tremors of breaking ice and the 
groaning of it are transmitted for miles through ice, where they 
might not be audible at all through the air. A snowhouse is so 
sound-proof that the barking and snarling of fighting dogs outside 
can seldom be heard, but their spurning of the snow and tumbling 
about is plainly audible, especially if you are lying in bed with 
your ear to the ice. This is how we hear dog-fights, which have to 
be promptly stopped. And this is how we hear the approach of a 
bear, for the crunching of snow under his heavy tread can be heard 
through the ice for even a hundred yards in spite of a gale whose 
whistle and hum would make it difficult for men to converse stand- 
ing close to each other out-of-doors. In case of a dog-fight or the 
approach of a bear we commonly enough run out naked, no matter 
what the temperature; for we find it true in fact as in theory that 
a chilling of the entire body simultaneously produces no ill effects, 
and the fight can be stopped or the bear killed in from thirty sec- 
onds to two minutes. 

But with the breaking up of ice it is different. When we feel 
the quivers of the approaching pressure, or hear the detonations of 
the breaking or the high-pitched squealing as one heavy flat piece 
slides over another, one of us may run outside to spy out the situa- 
tion, but unless his report is most reassuring we dress as quickly 
as firemen upon the ringing of an alarm. Clothes have no buttons 
and shoes no laces, and it isn't long till we are ready to move. The 
sleds are kept loaded except for bedding and cooking gear, and 
these can be rapidly taken from camp and added. Harnessing 
the dogs is also a quick process; each man can harness about two 
dogs per minute. 

In our five years of work on moving ice it has never actually 
happened that we had to flee precipitately except on one occasion, 
when by good fortune our sleds were already loaded. But it has 
often happened during the day's march that a situation quite as 
dangerous, though not so startling, has developed. This is when 
we are traveling across ice that has been grinding and is still under 



148 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

pressure, crossing from one cake to another by the corners where 
they touch. If we find ourselves upon a weak cake a few acres in 
area that is surrounded on all sides by stronger cakes, its edges 
crumple up if the pressure is steady, and a ring of ice ridges begins 
to form around. As the pressure continues the ridges get higher 
and the area of our cake gets smaller. It is a rather uncomfortable 
thing to have these ridges marching towards you slowly from all 
sides, with a noise that is anything between a slight rumble and a 
deafening roar, and the ice shivering where you stand. The worst 
thing is that the shivering and the crashing will paralyze the dogs 
with fear and make them worse than useless. This is where we need 
several men for each sled. The thing to do is to select some rather 
low place in one of the advancing ridges where the motion is slower 
and there is a solid floe beyond. To find such a place is difficult, 
more difficult because the weight of the forming ridg^ depresses the 
edge of your floe and causes a moati of sea water to separate it 
from you. 

At twenty or thirty degrees below zero the dogs are even more 
afraid of putting their feet in the water than of putting them upon 
moving pieces of ice. If there are four or five men with two sledges, 
as has been the case in some of our trips, we take the teams one at 
a time and usually have little trouble in dragging dogs and sleds 
over the ridge, for the tumbling motion of the cakes is slow enough 
to cause a sure-footed man no great trouble. When there are only 
three of us there is the advantage of only one sled, with no return 
trips necessary. But there is the disadvantage that with one man 
at the handle-bars to keep it from upsetting, the other two men are 
scarcely stronger than the six dogs, and we should be unable to 
move the sled at all were it not that the scared dogs seldom balk 
in unison, and two or three will be pulling ahead when the others 
are pulling back. In an emergency of this sort the style of harness- 
ing is important, and it is especially here that I favor the tandem 
system where each dog is kept in his place between the two traces. 
In harness such as is used in Nome the dogs have too much freedom 
and are able to turn completely around and face the sled. The fan 
system used in Greenland and which we have used in Victoria Is- 
land is even worse, for there each dog has complete freedom and 
can pull in any direction he likes. 

Breaking ice would mean a greatly complicated danger during 
darkness. For this reason we frequently camp an hour or two ear- 
lier when we come upon an exceptionally firm ice cake that promises 
a night without a break-up, or travel three or four hours longer 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 149 

when we fail to discover one firm enough for a campsite. It is for 
this reason too that we do not care to leave land in the beginning of 
our ice journey until after the first part of February in any year, 
for before that the nights are so long that the probability of getting 
into ice pressure during darkness is very high. This danger is not 
so great if your base on land is in some region of sluggish ice move- 
ment, such as northern Prince Patrick Island or EUef Ringnes Is- 
land or, to judge from his account, Peary's starting point. Cape 
Columbia. But any one beginning a journey from a region of vio- 
lent ice movement, such as the north coast of Alaska where we 
worked, or the northeastern coast of Siberia where Baron Wr angel 
worked nearly a century earlier, is taking serious chances if he 
starts out before the full moon of February. 

Bright moonlight gives most help after sunlight in ice travel, 
but cloudy nights hold danger, and for a reason special to arctic 
latitudes. Sea ice is seldom in reality smooth, but when sun or moon 
is behind clouds it will appear smooth through absence of shadow. 
In the more commonplace latitudes the hole out of which you have 
just pried a stone looks distinctly different from the stone lying 
beside it, no matter what the conditions of light, so long as you 
can see at all. That is because the stone is gray or brown or some 
other shade which differs from the earth walls of the hole. But 
in the frozen sea a boulder of ice and a hole beside it are just about 
the same shade of white or blue, and you cannot see either unless in, 
the relief produced by shadows. Now either sun or moon shining in' 
a clear sky will cast sharp shadows; but neither will do so when 
obscured by clouds, though either may give diffused light enough 
to reveal a man or stone at half a mile or a mountain at twenty 
miles. On the rough sea ice you may on an unshadowed day, with- 
out any warning from the keenest eyes, fall over a chunk of ice 
that is knee high or walk against a cake on edge that rises like the 
wall of a house. Or you may step into a crack that just admits your 
foot or into a hole big enough to be your grave. It is the strain on 
the eyes on such days of diffused light, the attempt to detect almost 
or quite undetectible hindrances, that makes us^ snowblind in 
cloudy weather more easily than on the most shinmieringly clear 
day. And bad as the cloudy day is the cloudy night is worse. 

In taking the chance of starting on a polar journey late in Janu- 
ary or early in February, the encouraging factor is that your great 
danger zone is a narrow one in the vicinity of land, and if you have 
a period of a week or so of calm and intensely frosty weather it 
may be temporarily quiescent, so that by a sort of dash you may 



150 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

be able to get forty or fifty miles offshore before the first gale 
strikes, beyond which distance we consider travel to be reasonably 
safe, no matter how little the daylight. 

In our present case there would have been no wisdom in leav- 
ing the land-fast ice for the mush beyond. For ten days the frost 
had amounted to so little that the mush remained congealed. Light 
snow was also falling now and then, blanketing the weak places, 
not only preventing freezing but disguising the danger spots. It was 
naturally tedious to remain encamped on the edge of the shore floe 
only six miles from the land, especially with spring almost upon 
us and the chances of success diminishing day by day; but there 
was no other sensible thing to do. In the water at the floe's edge 
seals were numerous, and partly to have something to do and partly 
because we knew that our people ashore were a little short of meat 
for dog feed, we killed a number with a view of taking them ashore. 

Now came a day when one of our kerosene tanks sprung a leak. 
We had two, each holding about six gallons, so that the loss of the 
contents of one was more than we could afford. I had intended at 
first that Wilkins should retain his motion picture camera forty or 
fifty miles offshore, thinking he might get some interesting pictures 
of moving ice and possibly of polar bears, but I now concluded that 
time would be so precious if we ever got away from the land floe 
that we could not afford either to stop for pictures or to carry the 
camera itself. So one day about noon I asked Wilkins and Castel 
to make a quick trip ashore, taking back the camera and the leaking 
tank as well as three or four seals, and returning with a sound tank 
full of oil. We had already been over this trail twice, first in 
coming out, then in taking the injured captain ashore, and the 
round trip would under ordinary circumstances have been made in 
about four hours. 

When Wilkins' party left us, the shore could be seen through 
a slight haze and there was a gentle breeze from the southwest. 
Two hours later, when they should have been nearly ashore, there 
were heavy snowflakes falling and the rising wind had in it the prom- 
ise of a gale. It seems that the gale began with them a little sooner 
than it did with us, for I learned later that by the time they got 
ashore it was blowing so hard that they had great trouble in getting 
the dogs to face the wind going up the hundred yards or so to the 
house, and after unhitching them, Wilkins has told me he himself 
had to crawl the distance on his hands and knees. Six hours from 
the time Wilkins and Castel left us we were in one of the worst of 
arctic gales. I have heard that the anemometer at Collinson Point 



^si^m 



^ 






tC o 



^ 



to 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 151 

fifty miles away registered 86 miles per hour, which may have been 
lower than the wind was, because these instruments tend to clog 
through thickening of their lubricating oil at low temperatures. 
The mild spell of the last few days had been too warm for snow- 
houses, and we were living in tents which, although good as tents 
go, were very unsatisfactory in such weather. 

Although the ice we were on had been frozen to the beach all 
winter and in ordinary weather would have remained so till spring, 
we realized that a piece of it might break off and carry us with it 
out to sea. Andreasen, Crawford, Storkerson and I took turns 
standing watch outdoors, but this was really only a matter of form, 
for the blizzard was so thick that even while there was daylight 
one's eyes could be opened only momentarily, and the howl of the 
gale and the flapping of the tent made it impossible to hear the noise 
of groaning ice which we could have heard easily inside a snowhouse. 
Many gales in the North last for three days, but this one had 
abated by the following morning, and at noon it was practically over. 
At first it did not seem as if anything particular had happened. 
Looking towards shore we could not see the mountains, but this 
was not surprising, for a haze commonly hangs over them for some 
time after a storm. To find out the situation I walked towards 
shore along the sled trail which should have wound in and out among 
grounded pressure-ridges for six miles towards the beach. But it did 
so no longer, for in less than half a mile I came to an expanse of 
open water several miles wide. Clearly the "tide" had risen during 
the gale, as it always does with violent sou'westers in this region. 
The field of ice which was ours had first been lifted off the bottom 
and then been broken off from the land floe, and we were afloat on 
it and being carried we did not for the present know where. 

When I got back to camp with this news the air had cleared to- 
wards the land and we could see the mountains. The Endicott 
range to the south had been familiar to Storkerson and me for six 
years. We knew every peak. There was no doubting the evidence 
of our eyes, although it was a little startling to realize that the 
mountains abreast of us were those which had been forty miles to 
the east at noon the previous day when our two companions started 
for shore. From the very slight elevation of the peaks above the 
horizon we judged that instead of being six miles we were now 
twenty miles from the beach. 

This was the second misfortune of a trip which as yet had hardly 
begun. The separation from us of Wilkins and Castel was in its 
effect more serious than the injury to Bernard. They were both ex- 



152 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

cellent men, and Castel had been intended as the third man with 
Storkerson and me to make the advance ice trip. But we still had 
good men, so that the most serious blow was that the two had taken 
with them some of the best dogs, one of our two good sleds, and 
some tools and other special equipment that were in a bag per- 
manently attached to the sled. The lack of these tools was for 
months afterwards an inconvenience which amounted to a serious 
handicap, while the loss of the sled compelled an immediate read- 
justment of plans. Of the four sleds we had when we left shore, 
two were very good and two almost worthless. These worthless 
sleds were to have been sent back about fifty miles from shore. 
Now we had only one good sled left. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE FIRST FIFTY MILES 

BEFORE Wilkins went ashore his sled had of course been 
unloaded and the contents dumped on the ice. With one sled 
less, it was impossible to take along the same amount of 
stuff. The first task was to go through our possessions and discard 
what could most easily be discarded. We threw away some food 
and some spare clothing, and planted a flag on a high ice hummock, 
thinking this cake might drift inshore and be discovered by some 
Eskimo seal hunters or even by Wilkins and Castel. We knew that 
they would make some attempt to rejoin us, but felt that it was sure 
to be futile, for not only was there an expanse of impassable water 
between us and land, but there was no means by which they could 
tell how far east or to seaward we had drifted. 

The second day after the gale we were able to commence travel- 
ing. The ice was under no pressure now, for the storm had blown 
it offshore and had drifted our island against the edge of the pack 
where it had stuck fast. The temperature, to our great distress, 
continued warm — never below zero, Fahrenheit. Still, as there was 
no pressure, the mush solidified enough in two nights to permit 
crossing in several places, although we were able to make only three 
miles the first traveling day. In some cases where the cracks be- 
tween floes were no more than three to five yards wide, we used to 
bridge them by chopping ice for an hour or two with our pickaxes 
and throwing the fragments into the water until their combined 
buoyancy was enough to support the sled during the crossing. And 
the farther from shore we got, the fewer the cracks we had to cross. 

A lead of open water appeared in front of us on April 4th. We 
could have crossed it by using the sled boat, but because in half a 
dozen such crossings the mush ice would have chafed holes in the 
canvas we did not do so. Furthermore, the pack was in motion and 
we expected the lead to close at any time, giving an easy cross- 
ing. So we did no traveling that day. 

To encourage the men, and to demonstrate to them how easy it 
Was to make a living at sea, I shot a number of seals and so did 

153 



154 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Storkerson and some of the others. A few animals sank but we re- 
covered six. When there seemed no use in killing more, I oiled the 
barrel of my rifle, as I always do when the temperature is not low, 
put it in its case and strapped the case on a sled. Meantime the 
men had made a bonfire of blubber and cooked some fresh seal 
meat. While we were feasting there was a sudden commotion among 
the dogs, which were still hitched to the sleds, for we expected to 
cross the lead at any moment. The sled with my rifle strapped on it 
was about six feet from the water, the other sleds only a little 
farther away, while the fire over which we were cooking was about 
twentj^ yards. 

The cause of the barking was a polar bear, the first one that some 
of the men had seen. By the time he arrived the lead had closed 
to a width of not more than five yards and on the very brink of 
it was the bear, pacing up and down, trying to make up his mind to 
plunge in, like a bather reluctant to take a dive into cold water. 
I don't know what it really was made him hesitate. It can hardly 
have been the chill of the water, though he gave distinctly that 
impression. But even while I theorized about his motives and be- 
havior, there came to mind the need for instant action, for some 
of the excited dogs might jump into the water to get at him, 
dragging a sled after them. Were the bear to cross the lead to our 
side the dogs, all tangled in their harness, would doubtless attack 
him. He would probably run away, but there was no certainty of it. 
Clearly he bore no hostility towards them nor had he any fear of 
their barking, or of the shouting of the six men who ran back and 
forth telling each other what to do. 

According to his own account McConnell must have been one of 
the coolest of us, for he said afterwards that he immediately ran for 
his camera, asking us to wait until he got a picture. To get at my 
rifle I had to run around to the side of the sled nearest the lead, and 
while I was unstrapping the case my back was towards the bear 
about five yards from me. Storkerson's rifle was on the sled next 
to mine, and while he was getting it I noticed that I was in direct 
line between him and the bear. He had his rifle first, for it had 
not been lashed to the sled, and seeing that he was likely to fire 
I requested him to be careful to get the bear and not me. There 
was doubtless no likelihood of the mistake, but I thought a word of 
caution wouldn't hurt. When it came the explosion was so close 
to my ear as to leave me partly deaf for some time. The bullet 
struck the bear, of course, and probably surprised him as much 
as it hurt. He was leaning over the water just getting ready to 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 155 

dive and was startled into falling on his back in the lead, splashing 
water over me as he fell. The water was perfectly clear and look- 
ing around I saw him going down like a sounding lead, with his 
feet at first uppermost, though he soon straightened out, rose to 
the surface and scrambled up on the far side. As he was strug- 
gling out, Storkerson gave him a second shot and a moment later as 
he was running away a third; but the rifle was only a .30-30 and, 
although he was bleeding profusely, the bear was making off with 
considerable speed. For the further encouragement of the party, to 
prove that no bear could come as close to us as this and get away, 
I thought I had better try the Mannlicher. This shot rolled him 
over and I took the story to be ended. After I had turned away to 
put the rifle back in the case he got unsteadily to his feet and dis- 
appeared behind an ice cake. 

The lead had been gradually closing, and Crawford, with a rifle 
and McConnell with a camera, were able to follow and find him 
about two hundred yards away, trying to cross a second lead. They 
fired several times, but when I got over he had crawled out on the 
ice, so that one more shot was necessary. It is always so when a 
group becomes excited — there is a hullabaloo and a fusillade of 
wasteful shooting. One bullet near the heart does a great deal more 
damage than a dozen badly placed, as many of these were, for some 
were in the paws, some in the neck and some in other fleshy parts. 
An exciting bear hunt may be interesting to read about but it is 
a poor hunt. One properly located Mannlicher bullet is all that 
should be necessary. 

On shore polar bears are ordinarily timid animals, afraid of 
men, and afraid of dogs and wolves. But the behavior of this 
visitor was typical of bears far from shore. There they have no 
enemy to fear. Besides their own kind they are familiar on the ice- 
pack with only three living things — the seals, on which they live, 
the white foxes which they unintentionally provide with food but 
which never come near enough to be caught themselves, and the 
gulls which cry loudly and flutter about them at their meals. Zool- 
ogists know, but it is not commonly realized by the laity, that the 
white fox is almost as much of a sea animal as the polar bear, for 
probably 90 per cent, of white foxes spend their winters on the ice. 
They are not able at sea to provide their own living, so several 
will be found following a bear wherever he goes. When the bear 
kills a seal he eats all he wants, usually from a quarter to half of 
the carcass. In many cases he touches none of the meat, but eats 
merely a portion of the blubber and the skin that goes with it. 



156 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

After this satiating meal he probably feels as if he will never care 
to eat again and goes away to sleep under a neighboring hummock 
leaving for the foxes what is left. It is not likely that he will come 
back, but if he did, the foxes would hop and the gulls flutter away. 
From long experience he gets the impression that these creatures 
are not the least bit dangerous, but too elusive to be caught. 

Without doubt the bear is able to tell the difference between a 
living seal and the meat of a dead one when he sniffs them in the 
air. There is always seal meat in our baggage and the smell is 
always about our camp. When a bear passes to leeward he must 
perceive the many camp odors, but the only one which interests him 
is that of the seal meat. Knowing no fear, he comes straight into 
camp^ walking leisurely because he does not expect the dead seals 
which he smells to escape him; neither has he in mind any hostility 
or disposition to attack, for, through long experience with foxes 
and gulls, he expects any living thing he meets to make way for 
him. But if on coming within a hundred or two hundred yards 
of camp he happens to see a sleeping dog, and especially if the dog 
were to move slightly, as is common enough, the bear apparently 
thinks, "Well, that is a live seal, after all!" He then instantly 
makes himself unbelievably flat on the ice, and with neck and snout 
touching the snow advances almost toboggan-fashion toward the 
dogs, stopping dead if one of them moves, and advancing again 
when they become quiet. If there is any unevenness in the ice, as 
there nearly always is in the vicinity of our camps — ^we choose 
such camping places — he will take cover behind a hummock and 
advance in its shelter. 

Our dogs are always tied, for in the dead of night a good dog 
may be killed or incapacitated in their fights with one another in 
less time than it takes a sleepy man to wake up and interfere. But 
we know the danger from approaching polar bears and endeavor to 
scatter the dogs in such a way that while a bear is approaching one 
dog in an exposed situation, another will get the animal's wind. 
Usually, too, we tie the dogs to windward of the camp, so that the 
bear shall have to pass us before he comes to them. When one dog 
sees or smells the bear he commences barking, and in a second 
every other dog is barking. At once the bear loses interest. He 
apparently thinks, "After all, this is not a seal, but a fox or a gull." 
His mind reverts to the seal meat he has been smelling, he gets 
up from his flat position and resumes his leisurely walk toward the 
camp. By that time, even though we may have been asleep, one of 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 157 

us will be out with a rifle, and a properly placed bullet ends the 
story. 

When the bear comes as this one did in broad daylight, with the 
dogs awake and the men moving about, he apparently takes the 
dogs and us for a variety of gull, noisier perhaps than any he has 
heard, but no more dangerous. In a party used to bears the men 
stand with guns ready, while the one who is to do the killing sits 
quietly and waits until in his natural zigzag approach the bear 
exposes one side or the other so as to give a chance for the shot 
near the heart. 

When we resumed our journey April 5th we left behind not only 
the bear carcass but most of the killed seals, partly because we could 
not haul them and partly because the time for the return of the 
support party was approaching and we thought they might be able 
to pick up the meat on their way ashore — emphasis is on the 
"might," because we were still so near shore that the ice floes had 
considerable difference of motion and were, besides, spinning on 
their axes. The return party did in due course try to follow the 
trail back towards shore, but proved unable to do so for more than 
a few miles and never saw this meat cache again nor the floe upon 
which it had been made. Just as had been the case with Baron 
Wrangel a century earlier in a similar region north of Siberia, they 
came across their old trails occasionally on the way ashore, but 
found them leading east or west or south as commonly as north, 
because of the floes having spun around during the interval. 

We had reached next day what is known as the edge of the 
Continental Shelf. Up to this point the ocean depth had been in- 
creasing a little more than a fathom to the mile as we went farther 
from land, but here in a mile or two it increased to a hundred and 
fifty fathoms. The soundings had been taken by Mr. Johansen who, 
as marine biologist, also made what investigations he could of the 
sea temperatures at various depths, and of the minute animal and 
plant life of the water. We had found seals in 180 fathoms, killed 
them and hauled them safely up on the ice. This encouraged the 
whole party. 

We still had more food with us than could possibly be hauled 
on the good sled intended for the advance journey. The other two 
sleds were so frail and kept breaking so frequently that the delays 
in repairing them more than cancelled any advantage of their addi- 
tional transporting power. I therefore made up my mind to send 
the support party back at this point. By them I sent instructions 



158 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

to Dr. Anderson, the second in command of the expedition. These 
instructions are so important for the understanding of future events 
that a summary of them must be given. 

Before leaving Collinson Point I had, to guard against the pos- 
sibility of our not returning to shore before the ice broke up, left 
with Dr. Anderson certain instructions to cover that eventuality. 
I had also discussed with him, with Storkerson, and with others, 
my plan to proceed to Banks or Prince Patrick Island in case the 
drift of the ice madef it necessary, or in case we found we could not 
get satisfactory results on the basis of a return by sled to Alaska. 
There was also the possibility of finding new land — remote, it is 
true, especially because of our late start. If land were found, I 
had expressed my intention to spend a year there. Or, I had said, 
we might go to Prince Patrick or Banks Island, partly because of 
the data to be secured on the way and partly to explore those islands 
during the summertime and to kill deer and dry the meat and skins 
for use as provisions and clothing the coming winter. 

This second letter to Dr. Anderson emphasized the increasing 
possibility that we might go to Banks Island instead of returning 
to Alaska and instructed him more particularly than before as to 
certain things. The main point of both previous and present in- 
structions was that in case of the non-return to Alaska of my party 
in the spring of 1914, he was to assume that we had landed at the 
northwest corner of Banks Island or the southwest corner of Prince 
Patrick Island. He would then find himself in command of the 
vessels in Alaska, of which he was to make the following disposi- 
tion. 

With the Alaska and as much cargo as she could carry and with 
certain members of the expedition, he was to proceed to the main- 
land shore of Dolphin and Union Straits. In that vicinity he was 
to select a winter base for the southern section of the expedition 
to occupy the coming year and possibly a second year following. 
With the Alaska were to go two oil-burning launches, which I had 
purchased especially for use in surveying river deltas and among 
the hundreds of small islands of Coronation Gulf. 

The Mary Sachs, under Captain Bernard, was to take a cargo 
of goods into the same region, landing them there at the winter 
quarters of the Alaska or at some neighboring point preferred by 
Dr. Anderson. The Mary Sachs was then to return to Herschel 
Island and if the season still allowed, which was probable, take a 
second cargo from there to Cape Kellett at the southwest corner of 
Banks Island; or possibly, if the conditions seemed favorable, up 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 159 

the west coast of Banks Island to Norway Island, but not farther. 
In other words, the Sachs was to establish, presumably at Cape 
Kellett but possibly farther north, a permanent base of supplies 
to which any party might retreat in case of shipwreck or other mis- 
fortune farther north, or to which they might return when their 
work farther north had been completed. 

But the most important item was that the North Star, under 
command of Wilkins, was to come as early in the season as she 
could to Banks Island and was to proceed northward along the 
coast with the expectation of possibly meeting us at Norway Island. 
In case she failed to find us or records left by us at Norway Island, 
she was to proceed, if she could, across McClure Strait to Prince 
Patrick Island, on the presumption that we would be waiting her 
there. 

The North Star was a vessel especially suited to such plans, first 
of all because she had a single propeller. The twin propellers of the 
Sachs rendered her the least suitable of our three ships for ice 
navigation, good as she was in open water, for being located at the 
sides instead of amidships, these propellers stuck out at such angles 
that they were very likely to be broken off by the ice. This was 
the reason I did not expect the Sachs to go north beyond Kellett 
unless she found the ice conditions especially favorable. But the 
little Star, under her former owner. Captain Matt Andreasen, had 
shown herself the most competent craft that had ever come to this 
part of the Arctic for a certain kind of ice navigation. In the 
spring, when the rivers open and the thaw water begins to flow in 
little and big streams off all parts of the coast, the sea ice is melted 
by this comparatively warm land water, and an open lane is formed 
along the beach, while the heavier grounded ice is still continuous 
along the coast a few hundred yards farther to sea, and the pack 
is still heavy in the offing. With her fifty-two feet length and 
draft of four feet two inches loaded, the Star was able to make 
good progress along this lane when a clumsier boat of deeper draft 
could have made none at all. 

My hope was that in this way the Star would be able to wriggle 
up along the Banks Island coast and get as far north as Norway 
Island early. Of course she could not carry much of a cargo (per- 
haps twenty tons, though Captain Andreasen said he had once car- 
ried twenty-seven) , but with our plan of exploration this disadvan- 
tage did not weigh much against her superiority as an ice boat. 
She could bring four or five men and a dog team or two and am- 
munition, with kerosene for our primus stoves and a few things of 



160 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

that sort which are convenient to have even under a system of living 
on the country. These she would probably be able to carry much 
farther north than either the Alaska or the Sachs; and in any sys- 
tem of polar exploration a base far north is of paramount impor- 
tance, although not quite as important to us as to those explorers 
who believe in freighting with them on sledge journeys their food 
and fuel. 

I had bought the Star from Captain Andreasen only a short 
while before leaving the Alaska coast, and had planned all along 
to put her under the command of Wilkins, of whom I had already 
formed almost as high an opinion as his later service to the expe- 
dition justified. Although the Arctic is a place of uncertainties 
where schedules can seldom be adhered to, I had thus high hopes 
of meeting Wilkins and the Star in August at northern Banks or 
southern Prince Patrick Island. 

Carrying these instructions to our men ashore the support party, 
Crawford, Johansen, and McConnell, left us at 70° 13' N. latitude 
and 140° 30' W. longitude, on the afternoon of April 7th. They 
had with them for a journey landward of fifty miles full rations for 
thirty-one days for the men and about twenty-five days for the 
dogs. We provided so much more than they needed because we had 
no means of carrying the supplies ourselves, and because we were 
unable to give them a rifle for sealing. With Wilkins' and Castel's 
rifles gone and also the ammunition that had been in the bag at- 
tached to their sled, the advance party needed both of the remaining 
two, for not only was the journey across the ice to the northwest cor- 
ner of Banks Island far too long to make on supplies we could haul, 
but there was hunting to be done in Banks or Prince Patrick Island 
to lay up winter food for the dogs and crew of the Star. It is also 
always possible that one rifle may break, and one other offers by no 
means a large margin of safety when your hunting means your sub- 
sistence. With more mature experience, I would now never make a 
long trip with less than one rifle for each man. We have on some 
trips carried an extra rifle carefully packed away in a heavy case to 
be protected against accidents and reserved for an emergency. 

I have learned from McConnell's diary, a copy of which he 
kindly gave me at the end of the expedition, that the party on their 
way ashore had a good deal of trouble with open water, and with 
high pressure-ridges where it was necessary to build a road with 
pickaxes and where in one case they were able to make good only 
a few hundred yards in a whole day of struggle. On one occasion 
being without a rifle they had something of a fright from three polar 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 161 

bears which approached their camp but consented to be scared away. 
After nine marches they reached shore on April 16th, where they 
fell in with Constable Parsons of the Royal Northwest Mounted 
Police, on his way to Herschel Island from a visit to the Belvedere. 
He told them that all the people along the coast, whalers and trap- 
pers and Eskimos alike, had given our party up for dead after the 
gale which carried us off from the shore ice. 

Since that time we have traveled over the ice north of Alaska 
so long and so safely that it now seems curious even to these same 
Eskimos and whalers, as I know from conversation with them, that 
they could in 1914 have had such exaggerated notions of the dangers 
of ice travel. I remember especially one conversation in 1914, 
just before we left the Alaska coast, with Captain Mogg, a whaler 
of more than twenty years' experience, which illustrates the then 
common point of view. The captain told me that one day just about 
Christmas he had gone to the top of Herschel Island, which is about 
five hundred feet high, and had looked to the north without seeing 
any sign of open water or of anything except firm and stationary 
sea ice. The next day when the weather had cleared after a brief 
gale he had gone to the top of the island and had seen a belt of ice 
about a mile wide still clinging to the shore and beyond that open 
ocean, the pack having ''gone abroad" before the gale. After a 
dramatic recital Captain Mogg turned to me and said, "Supposing, 
with your scientific notions, you had been off on that ice the 
day before when the gale struck — where in hell would you have been 
then?" It was obvious that Captain Mogg supposed I would have 
been at the sea bottom. It did not occur to him that a cake of ice 
may be a very seaworthy craft, and that when you are floating 
away on a large one you may have no more evidence that you are 
moving than do the people who sleep peacefully at night on shore 
while the earth is spinning on its axis. 



CHAPTER XVI 

WE ENTER UPON THE UNKNOWN OCEAN 

THE support party turned towards land at about the most 
northerly point ever reached by ships in this region in sum- 
mer. In winter no human beings of any race had been nearly 
so far from the Alaska coast at this longitude. We were three men 
alone on the edge of the unknown. To that extent the situation had 
been duplicated before. Nansen and Johansen had been only two. 
But they were using a tried method — they had food to carry them 
nearly or quite to land, and would begin to live by hunting only as 
the journey approached its end. But we were facing the unknown 
part of the arctic sea with a method not only untried, but disbelieved 
in by all but ourselves. My companions went about their work 
quietly, but I know they felt no less than I our dramatic position. 
Were there animals in abundance waiting in the "polar ocean with- 
out life"? Upon the answer depended not onl^ our lives and our 
success, but a new view of the world we live in. 

Since the days before Magellan when men of equal standing could 
argue about whether the world was fiat or round there has been no 
more fundamental geographic issue than the one we were about to 
resolve: is the arctic region barren and in its nature hostile to life; 
or is it hostile merely to life of a southern type and to men who live 
like southerners, and friendly to any man or animal that will meet 
the North on its own terms? We were staking our lives on the right- 
ness of the unpopular side of this controversy. But we did not think 
our lives were in serious danger, and so our resolve was not quite so 
heroic as it sounds at first. Though Columbus had both numbers 
and authorities against him, I doubt he ever lost much sleep for fear 
of his ship plunging in the night over the western edge of a flat 
world. 

Contrary to custom in polar narrative, we have so far said little 
about a traveling outfit. This difference in narrative corresponds to 
a difference in method. Other arctic explorers have relied for sub- 
sistence exclusively or mainly on what they brought with them 
when we relied mainly upon the resources of the country to be 
traversed. Also there is little point in telling just what we took at 

162 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 163 

the start, when some of it was lost early, some had to be thrown 
away, and some had to be sent back. 

When the support party left us we had an outfit that was to 
last a year and a half in case of necessity; for at the beginning of 
a trip we always expect that in addition to the immediate summer 
for which the outfit is designed, we may have to spend the coming 
winter in some uninhabited region, and again need it to take us to 
some inhabited place the second spring. 

The final party who were going North into the unknown to seek 
new information, to find new lands if there should be any, and to try 
out a new theory of polar exploration were Storker Storkerson, Ole 
Andreasen and myself. 

The final outfit consisted of six dogs, the most powerful that 
we could get and four of them the best dogs I have ever used, and 
a load of 1,236 pounds on a 208-pound sled, which meant that each 
dog was hauling 240 pounds. In my diary for April 7th I say 
that we had full rations for men for about thirty days and dog 
feed for about forty days. In a way this food was the least im- 
portant part of our load, for our theory of outfitting is that the 
essentials are rifles, ammunition and other hunting gear, the scien- 
tific instruments, cameras and photographic supplies, diaries, spare 
clothing, bedding and cooking utensils. After these we take on as 
much food and fuel as can be hauled without making the load too 
heavy. Hauling fuel is more important than hauling food, and the 
kind of fuel more important than the kind of food. Better kero- 
sene burnt in a blue-flame stove than seal blubber burnt by any 
method we have so far devised, whereas the choice of the most delect- 
able food over seal or caribou meat is negligible to our comfort. 
A primus stove cooks more rapidly than a seal-oil lamp and is 
more cleanly than an outdoor fire of seal blubber. But we had lost 
half our twelve gallons of fuel with Wilkins, and kerosene was des- 
tined to give out sooner than food. 

As a hunting outfit we had one Gibbs-Mannlicher-Schoenauer 
6.5 miUimeter rifle with 170 rounds of ammunition, and one Win- 
chester .30-30 carbine with 160 rounds. 

As scientific equipment we carried two sextants with the neces- 
sary tables for computing latitude and longitude, two thermometers, 
aneroid barometer, several prismatic compasses, a sounding ma- 
chine with several leads and about 10,000 feet of wire. The time 
for determining longitude was carried by an ordinary watch and by 
a Waltham astronomical watch. The dial of this Waltham watch 
was numbered to twenty-four hours instead of twelve, a great con- 



164 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

venience and almost necessity because in summer when the sun 
never sets and when at times there is thick, foggy weather for many 
days in succession, it is often a matter of doubt, if you carry an 
ordinary watch, whether it shows twelve o'clock midnight or twelve 
o'clock noon. One may think that only extraordinary carelessness 
would make you lose track of time so far that you are in doubt 
which of the twelve-hour periods you are in, but it happens fre- 
quently. Under special conditions we may travel fifteen or twenty 
hours continuously, at times through the most exhausting kind of 
going. At the end of this you may happen to get a blizzard which 
induces you to rest in camp a while, free to sleep as long as you 
need or desire. Where there is no darkness one's irregularity of 
habits becomes extraordinary. We may not feel any special in- 
convenience from staying awake twenty or thirty hours, and we are 
equally likely to sleep for fifteen or eighteen hours. More than 
once it has happened that we could argue as to whether we were 
breakfasting in the morning or in the evening. But it never has 
happened that we have slept so far beyond the twenty-four hours 
recorded by the Waltham astronomical as to be in doubt of the time 
it records. 

The first day after the support party left us we were able to 
travel only a few hundred yards before being stopped by open water, 
and as we had to stop, anyhow, I killed a seal that had stuck his 
head up through some half-frozen mush. He was within reach 
of my manak, but I could not pull him in because the forming 
young ice offered too much resistance. The temperature at 8 o'clock 
that evening was 11° F. but falling, and at that frost we thought 
the mush might harden enough so that in the morning by the use 
of skis we could walk out and get him. But our warm period 
was not yet over and the temperature rose again. 

Now that I have mentioned skis I might say something about 
their usefulness in polar work. I have heard one explorer say that 
they are better than snowshoes because it is easier to kill dogs with 
them. This advantage never appealed to us, since we never had 
any dogs to be killed and have further found that with a good 
dog kindness works better than a whip. I can not remember the 
time when I did not know how to walk on skis, and as a boy there 
was no sport I enjoyed so much as sliding down hill on them. But 
I have never found them of any particular use in polar work except 
in restricted areas. Amundsen used them around King William 
Island and quite properly, for there the ice is level, as it is at 
Coronation Gulf and at many other points where the sea is shielded 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 165 

by one or another of the islands of the Arctic Archipelago. They 
are probably well adapted, too, to the level expanses of the Ant- 
arctic continent. Where the ice is smooth or the land flat, skis are 
useful, especially before a fair wind when one can glide almost 
without effort and at a higher speed than is attainable on snow- 
shoes. But such places are rare in the areas we have had to explore. 
Among the jaggedly broken ice of the open ocean skis are almost 
as much out of place as in a thick forest. We would not carry them 
at all except that they are useful in constructing the frame of our 
sled boat, a process to be described later. For this purpose we al- 
ways have a pair or two along, and on rare occasions use them to 
walk on. On this trip my companions were both Norwegians and 
habituated to skis, yet none of us thought of using them. I am 
now of the opinion, however, that late in the spring after the snow 
begins thawing in the daytime and freezing with a hard crust at 
night, it might be advisable to use them occasionally where the ice 
is less rough. The hunting snowshoe of one of several Indian models 
is a very useful thing in any except the roughest ice. The type 
used by the Eskimos on the north coast of Alaska — with a length 
of between three and four feet and a greatest width of about ten 
inches — is the most convenient. 

By the beginning of the present ice trip both Storkerson and I 
had spent over five years with the Eskimos of northern Canada and 
Alaska, dressing as they did and making camp after their fashion. 
It is therefore probable that few arctic explorers have been quite 
as familiar as we with the technique of comfort. A classic fea- 
ture of the popular polar narrative is the discomfort of life in 
icamp, but this can never truthfully mark any of our stories. We 
had an important advantage over even such masters of arctic tech- 
nique as Peary in the difference of our theory of fuel supply and 
the consequent temperature of our camps. Peary's parties depended 
on alcohol or kerosene in limited quantity, which they hoarded, 
knowing that on the polar ice there are no stores or oil supply sta- 
tions. And they were always on strict fuel rations. The cooking 
apparatus was specially designed to concentrate all the heat against 
the bottom of the cooking pot, allowing as little as possible to es- 
cape into the body of the snowhouse or tent. When the pot came to 
a boil the fire was instantly extinguished. This was certainly nec- 
essary if the fuel was to last the whole journey. But with us there 
are supply stations wherever we go. Our cooking apparatus is not 
designed to conserve heat, for we want heat to spread and when the 
cooking is done we do not extinguish the fire until the house is as 



166 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

warm as we care to have it. Then if the camp gets a little too cool 
we light it again. Whenever the kerosene we leave home with 
gives out a seal will supply us with blubber; and that blubber we 
burn freely because we know there is another seal to be had where 
the last one came from. 

One result of this comfortable life is that our diary entries are 
voluminous on days of idleness. We use fountain pens, and sit 
lightly clad while we write of everything seen or thought of since the 
last preceding idle day. April 8th was such a day. The lead that 
had stopped us the day before had indeed closed, but when we 
crossed it we were able to travel for a mile only before we were 
stopped by another lead and had to make camp. After supper had 
been cooked and the dogs fed, I noted in my diary that for the fifty 
miles since leaving shore we had never seen a cake of ice of a 
probable area of over ten square miles, and most had been only a 
few acres in extent. As they were in sluggish motion a great deal 
of open water was visible between, and in this water there com- 
monly had been seals. 

We had seen very little ice more than a year old. We have 
already pointed out that ice which has weathered one or more sum- 
mers is easy to distinguish from that of the current winter by sight 
and by taste. When sea ice forms it is salty, although perhaps not 
quite so salty as the water from which it is made, and probably 
during the winter it loses a certain amount of its salt, although 
even in April or May ice formed the previous October is still too 
salty for ordinary cooking uses. But in June and July when rains 
begin and snow melts and little rivulets trickle here and there over 
the ice, forming in the latter part of summer, a network of lakes con- 
nected by channels of sluggishly flowing water, the saltiness dis- 
appears, or at least that degree of it which is perceptible to the 
palate, and the following year this ice is the potential source of the 
purest possible cooking or drinking water. The ponds on top of 
the ice are also frefeh. During the melting of summer the pressure- 
ridges and the projecting snags of broken ice change in outline. 
When the ice has been freshly broken it may well be compared with 
the masses of rock in a granite quarry just after the blast, or if it is 
thinner, with the broken-bottle glass on top of an English stone 
wall. But during the summer all the sharp outlines are softened on 
the pressure-ridges, so that at the end of the first summer they are 
no more jagged than a typical mountain range, and at the end of 
two or three years they resemble the rolling hills of a western 
prairie. The old ice is easily recognizable at a distance by its out- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 167 

line and on closer approach by the fact that the hummocks are 
frequently glare. That can never be the case with salty ice, which 
is sticky and therefore always has snow adhering to it. Being 
glare, the old ice gives poor footing for men and dogs, yet we com- 
monly prefer it as being smoother. It is not really smooth, but like 
rolling hills from which the angles of youth have been smoothed 
by weathering. Young ice is frequently heaped up in indescribable 
confusion, the jagged ridges of it sometimes fifty or sixty feet above 
water level and occasionally so rough that an unharnessed dog is 
unable to make his. way over it. When we come to such ridges we 
have to make a road with pickaxes and progress is occasionally less 
than a hundred yards per hour. We had had a large number on the 
way from shore, but they were already getting noticeably fewer, 
lower, and less difficult to traverse. 

April 9th we could make only two miles northing, being com- 
pelled to camp by a rising gale. For an hour the wind had been in- 
creasing from the southwest, with the snowflakes falling more 
thickly, when we decided to pick a camp site. We chose it in the 
lee of a ridge about thirty feet high giving a degree of shelter, but 
when we were about to pitch the tent Andreasen (whom we always 
called Ole, and shall in this book hereafter) noticed a crack in the 
ice. This raised the question of whether the ice was more likely 
to break in the vicinity of the ridge than farther away. Finally, 
we decided on an unsheltered, level ice area, pitched the tent and 
built a snow wall to windward to break the force of the gale. The 
event showed we probably owed our lives to Ole's having noticed 
the tiny ice crack and so prevented our camping in the lee of the 
ridge. 

The gale proved to be the worst I have ever seen at sea.* Al- 
though the windbreak was built so high that only the top of the tent 
projected above it, the flapping of the Burberry was so loud and 
the hum of the breaking ice so continuous, that when in the even- 
ing Storkerson went out to stand watch we in the tent were unable 
to hear him though he shouted his loudest. When he came in again 
to know why his shouts had not been answered I decided that 
there was no point in standing guard and we all lay down and tried 
to sleep. 

We knew well that the ice was breaking up around us and we 

*The support party, according to McConnell's diary, were compelled to 
camp by this same gale. ''Sleet alternated with snow, and soon the dogs 
were covered with ice," writes McConnell; "as for ourselves, our parkas soon 
became suits of icy mail " 



168 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

knew what the process was like. Here and there the six-foot 
ice was separating into pieces. A ridge of these pieces might be 
marching towards us, with a movement which all of us could picture 
clearly, but which is best described for those who have not seen it 
by the analogy of a few pounds of domino sugar dumped on a table 
and then moved by pushing the whole heap slowly with the hand. 
If you were to remember the height of each domino of sugar in 
comparison with a bread crumb, you would realize the size of the 
ice cakes in comparison with our tent and ourselves, and you could 
gather what would take place in the path of that moving ridge. 
It does sometimes happen that a piece of ice as high as fifty feet 
rises during the course of ten minutes until it stands perpendicular; 
a moment later, when pushed just beyond the perpendicular, it 
breaks near the water line and falls over. If such a cake had top- 
pled upon our tent, we would have been crushed like flies between 
two boards. A realization of it kept us awake into the night. But 
more clearly than the danger of lying quietly in the tent we realized 
the greater danger of trying to do anything. To have gone outside 
and groped about in the impenetrable darkness, where the snow 
was flying so thick that one's eyes could be opened only to be filled 
with it, would have been to walk into trouble rather than out. We 
had picked in the evening what looked to us like the safest spot 
and sensibly chose to abide by that decision. 

We wished the poets and magazinists who write about "The 
eternal silence of the Frozen North" might have been with us in the 
bedlam of that night. It cannot be properly said that we heard 
the noise of the breaking ice. We knew it would have been a roar 
if only the shrieking of the gale and the flapping of the tent could 
have been stilled a moment, and we felt it, by the almost continuous 
shivering of our ice floor and the occasional jar from the toppling 
cakes. But one gets used to danger and one gets tired of staying 
scared, and before one o'clock all of us were asleep, though perhaps 
not soundly. About five in the morning the gale had lessened enough 
for me to be awakened by a dog's howling, which would have been 
inaudible an hour or two earlier. Storkerson, going outside, was 
able to see a distance of ten or fifteen yards. The trouble with the 
dog was that he had been tied in such a way that he was about to 
be dragged by the rope into the water of a crack that was slowly 
opening. Storkerson untied him and came in to tell us that a pres- 
sure-ridge about fifteen feet high had form^ed twenty-five feet from 
the back of our tent. I found later that this ridge was, as was 
natural, composed of huge cakes of ice, the fall of any one of which 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 169 

upon the tent would have brought our careers to an abrupt ending. 
The tracks of a bear in the snow showed that a large male had come 
in the blizzard within fifteen feet of us and within five feet of the 
dogs. We certainly knew nothing of his visit; it is probable that the 
dogs knew nothing of it, either, and it is not certain that the bear 
realized our proximity. 

A striking proof of the degree to which the ice had telescoped 
during the night was in a bear trail which we had crossed about a 
mile before camping and which now was only about three hundred 
yards away. 



CHAPTER XVII 

COLDER WEATHER AND BETTER PROGRESS 

ONE effect of the gale of April 9th was that the ice which be- 
fore had been comparatively level was now a chaos of ridges. 
But the snow which had been falling for several days and 
was soft and deep when the gale commenced, was now beaten so 
hard that our feet left little impression. This was an advantage 
nearly compensating for the roughness of the ice. But a blessing 
beyond price was the clearing of the air and the beginning of a 
period - of cold weather and northwesterly light airs which was 
destined to last for about two weeks. Instead of nondescript 
weather of ten or twenty above zero, we now had propitious cold 
of fifteen to thirty degrees below. 

Ice motion was a natural tendency for a day or two after the 
gale, but by the 11th the firm frost had bound the floes together. 
On April 11th we made thirteen miles and for several days a little 
better mileage each day ; for the cold weather held and the ice grew 
smoother as we went farther from shore until at a distance of over 
a hundred miles we began to make twenty or twenty-five miles per 
day. On April 13th and 14th we crossed huge floes of glare ice. 
As this was evidently ice of the present year and as no new salty 
ice is ever glare, these floes must have been formed in the fresh 
water off the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and broken loose and 
drifted a hundred miles to the northwest. 

Although the ice was in the main frozen solid, we found open 
water every ten or fifteen miles. The leads were commonly running 
east and west and were of uneven width. Frequently they were as 
much as half a mile wide at the point where we struck them, but by 
following them a mile or two in one direction or the other we usually 
came to a place where a peninsula out from our floe met a similar 
one from the opposite floe and thus gave a chance to cross. We 
took soundings in most of these leads but were never able to get 
bottom with the amount of wire we had, so we are able to say only 
that the depth was in excess of 4,500 feet (1,386 meters). We had 
had more wire than this when we left shore^ but we had been break- 
ing and losing it at the various soundings. 

170 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 171 

In outfitting our expedition we had sought advice from many- 
authorities in oceanography as to the desirable sort of sounding 
wire, and this advice ranged all the way from the people who lay 
ocean cables and favor single strand piano wire, to that of Dr. 
W. S. Bruce of the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, who ad- 
vised 9-strand braided copper wire. I had followed the advice of 
Dr. Bruce and provided the expedition with a large amount of 
9-strand wire, and I had also taken the advice of the cable com- 
panies and bought a considerable amount of piano wire. But most 
of the soundings were to have been done by the Karluk and the ex- 
ploratory parties outfitted from her, so she had carried all the 
braided wire and this was now lost. As fortune would have it, Mr. 
Leffingwell at Flaxman Island had been able to give me 911 meters 
of braided wire. At Collinson Point we had got piano wire which 
proved so worthless that whenever we sounded with it we lost the 
lead and a piece of the wire. The bottom of the deep sea is covered 
with a sticky ooze into which the lead sinks, so that a considerable 
strain must be put upon the wire to release it after sounding. We 
had carried six sounding leads at the start, but by April 15th we had 
only two leads left, one of six pounds and another of twelve, and 
had lost several miles of piano wire. We are therefore able to add 
our testimony to the experience of Dr. Bruce that any one who 
expects to sound repeatedly with the same wire will do well to use 
the strongest. We used for five years and for several hundred sound- 
ings the braided wire secured from Mr. Leffingwell without once los- 
ing a lead or sustaining an accident. 

Whether we were destined to find seals in the deep water off- 
shore with the weight of all polar authority against it and the opin- 
ion of the Alaska whalers and the coast Eskimos equally against it, 
had always been the question in Alaska. Now it was natural that 
we should watch closely for signs of seals. Here it stood us in good 
stead that we had for years been in the habit of doing our own hunt- 
ing. A man inexperienced in woodcraft may walk through a forest 
without seeing any signs of the presence of moose, though these 
signs will be patent to the hunter or guide who knows the woods and 
the ways of animals. So a man who does not realize the presence of 
seals unless he sees their heads bobbing about in the water of an 
open lead, might make a long journey over the polar ice and still 
retain his original conviction that food animals are absent. But 
there may be on the sea ice inconspicuous signs of seals as clear in 
their meaning when once noted as bear tracks in the snow. 

Ice formed this year is easily distinguished from ice that is two 



172 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

or more years old. Seals are seldom found under ice more than a 
year old. Of this year's ice much has been crushed into ridges 
where no seal can live, but here and there are level patches, partly 
covered with snow, but with the surface visible in rare spots where 
the wind has blown the snow away. If in a day's journey you keep 
your eyes carefully on every patch you pass, you will, if there are 
seals in the region, see now and then a scar on the ice. The previ- 
ous autumn when this young ice first formed and while it was still 
mushy, a seal has shoved its head up through to breathe. In doing 
this he has made not only a hole six to ten inches in diameter, but 
has come up so suddenly that he has scattered fragments of two 
or three-inch ice for a foot or two around the hole. Months after- 
wards the outlines of the hole can still be faintly seen, but more 
easily discernible are the little pieces of ice in an irregular circle 
around it. 

Food was still in our sled and our main concern was speed. We 
never had much time to stop at a lead to watch for seals, and when 
we did stop we never saw any. But every day or two we saw one 
or more of these scars in the ice, showing that the seals had been 
there the previous September or October, and if seals were there in 
September we felt certain they would still be there in April. And so 
we pushed ahead with increased confidence in a theory the logic of 
which had seemed to me conclusive from the beginning. 

On April 15, 1914, I built the first snowhouse I ever tried to 
build myself, although as far back as 1907 I described in Harper's 
Magazine just how it could and should be done. A midwinter jour- 
ney through the Mackenzie delta (1906-7) had provided opportu- 
nity for me to see and assist for the first time at the building of a 
snowhouse. The assistance happened to be confined to carrying the 
blocks from where they had been cut to where the house was being 
built, but I was free to observe and analyze every process that went 
to the making of the finished house. The principles appeared so 
simple that, in spite of having read in various arctic books that 
their construction is a racial gift with the Eskimos and a mystery in- 
soluble to white men, I never from that moment had any doubt 
that I could build a snowhouse whenever I should want to. On my 
expedition of 1908-12 we often used snowhouses but only in the 
Coronation Gulf district, where they were always built for us by 
the hospitable Copper Eskimos, who never allowed a visitor at 
their own camps to lift a hand to the building of his own house. 

Apart from that one year my companions on my second expe- 
dition had been exclusively Alaskan Eskimos. These people had 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 173 

never known how to build ,snowhouses in their own country. When 
they came east from Alaska into Canada they came as passengers 
with whaling ships, and from the whalers or from their own tradi- 
tions they had a prejudice both against the eastern Eskimos and 
against the snowhouse, which is their characteristic habitation in 
winter. As a result I have never known but one Eskimo from 
Alaska who, while residing in the Mackenzie district, learned to 
build snowhouses. And in spite of the undoubted comfort of these 
dwellings they have now gone thoroughly out of fashion in the 
Mackenzie district, so that it is only the older men who were 
mature before the coming of the whalers in 1889 who are expert at 
building them. The winter of 1917-18 I built a snowhouse at 
Herschel Island at the instance of my friend. Inspector Phillips, 
of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, who, although he had 
been stationed at Herschel Island for several years, had never seen 
one. The curious thing was that the Herschel Island Eskimos 
gathered about to watch with rather more interest than the white 
men of the place. The younger Eskimos came because they had 
not before seen a snowhouse built; the older ones because it struck 
them as extraordinary not only that a white man should know how 
to build a snowhouse at all, but that he should demean himself by 
using so unfashionable a dwelling. 

The reason no snowhouses had been built on our ice journey 
before April 15th was the warm weather of which we have com- 
plained. Then when the cold weather came we were eager to travel 
every moment, and the pitching of a tent is undeniably quicker 
than the building of a snowhouse, especially when the men are inex- 
perienced. But on the evening of the 14th I had a slight touch 
of snow-blindness, and that night a lead obligingly opened just 
ahead of our camp, giving an additional reason for not traveling 
the next day. This provided the long-wanted opportunity for 
putting my snowhouse-building theories into practice, and in three 
hours we built a dwelling nine feet in diameter and six feet high, 
inside measure. It was as well built as any of the hundreds I have 
built since, with this difference, that the three of us could now put 
up a house the same size in about forty-five minutes. 

As a preliminary to the building of a house we find a snowbank 
that is of the right depth and consistency. With our soft deerskin 
boots we walk around on the drift, and if we see faint imprints of 
our feet but nowhere break through, we assume provisionally that 
the drift is a suitable one, but examine it further by probing v/ith 
a rod similar to a very slender cane. When the right bank has 



174 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

been found we get out our sixteen-inch butcher knives or twenty- 
inch machetes and cut the snow into domino-shaped blocks about 
four inches thick, fifteen to twenty inches wide and twenty to 
thirty-five inches long. These blocks, according to their size and 
the density of the snow, will weigh from fifty to a hundred pounds, 
and must be strong enough to stand not only their own weight when 
propped up on edge or carried around, but if they are intended 
for the lower tiers of the house, must be capable of supporting the 
weight of three to five hundred pounds of other blocks resting upon 
them. 

The house itself is built preferably on a level part of the drift 
where the snow is three or more feet deep. The first block is set 
on edge as a domino might be on a table, but with your knife you 
slightly undercut the inner edge so as to make the block lean in- 
ward at a very slight angle if the house is to be a big one, or at a 
considerable angle if it is to be a small one. If, to use the lan- 
guage of physics, you want to lean the block over enough to bring 
the line of the center of gravity outside the base, this can be 
done by putting up a second block at the same time and propping 
one against the other. But this is never done in actual practice, 
for a house so small as to necessitate it would be too small for 
human habitation. 

The oval or circle that is to be the ground plan may be deter- 
mined by eye as the builder sets up the blocks one after the other; 
but in practice I make an outline with a string with pegs at either 
end, one peg planted where the center of the house is to be and 
the other used to describe the circumference, somewhat as a school- 
boy may use two pencils and a string to make a circle on a piece 
of paper. I find that even the best of snowhouse builders, Eskimo 
or white, if they rely on the eye alone, will now and then err in 
the size of the house, making it uncomfortably small or unneces- 
sarily large for the intended number of occupants. But with a 
string a simple mathematical calculation always tells how many 
feet of radius will accommodate the intended number of lodgers. 

It will be seen by the photographs that when you once have your 
first block standing on edge, it is a simple matter to prop all the 
other blocks up by leaning one against the other. The nature of 
snow is such that when a block has been standing on a snowbank 
or leaning on another block for five or ten minutes in frosty weather, 
it is cemented to the other blocks and to the snow below at all 
points of contact and can be moved only by exerting force enough 
to break it. 



fti- 4 .1 \ m 




m 



at-' 



OQ El 

M o 

MS 






^ 



tf 




P ^ 
OP, 



^ 









ooo 



,PQ 



I 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 175 

When the first tier has been completed the second can be begun 
in any of several ways. The simplest is to select any point in the 
circle formed by your first tier, and from the top edge of one of the 
blocks make a diagonal cut downward to the bottom edge of the 
far corner of the same block, or of the second or third block. In 
the niche thus formed you place the first block of the second tier, its 
end abutting on the last block of the ground tier. After that you 
lean the second block of the second tier against the first block of 
the second tier, and so on, building up spirally. The blocks of 
each tier must be inclined inward at a greater angle than those 
of the tier below and at a less angle than those of the tier above. 
In other words, what you are trying to do is to build an approxi- 
mately perfect dome. 

By the simple experiment of propping two books of the same 
size against each other on a table, it will be found that they cannot 
fall unless they slide past each other where they meet at the cor- 
ners, or slip on the table. But snow is so sticky that these blocks 
do not slip, and we cut the corners in such a way that they meet 
with even faces and do not tend to slide past each other any more 
than do blocks in a masonry dome. Building with snow blocks is 
far simpler than building with masonry, for stone is an intractable 
substance and has to be shaped according to a mathematical calcu- 
lation or moulded in an exact form before it is put in its intended 
position; but snow being a most tractable substance, such fore- 
thought becomes unnecessary. We place the block in its approxi- 
mate position in the wall and then lean it gradually against the 
block that next preceded it, and, by the method of trial and error, 
continually snip off piece after piece until the block settles com- 
fortably into the position where it belongs. A glance at the photo- 
graphs, especially the ones illustrating th-j latter steps in the build- 
ing, shows that the blocks cannot possibly fall unless they first 
break. 

It becomes evident that with photographs and a description 
and possibly, for surety's sake, a diagram or two in addition, the 
building of snowhouses could be taught by correspondence to boys 
in any place on earth where the winters are cold enough and the 
winds strong enough to form hard snowdrifts that last for several 
days or weeks. It is therefore curious that the building of snow- 
houses has until just lately been considered a sort of mystery. 
Antarctic explorers, like Shackleton, have realized the superior 
comfort of the snowhouse but have used tents, explaining the ap- 
parent inconsistency by saying, "There are no Eskimos in the 



176 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Antarctic whom we could hire, as did Peary, to make snowhouses 
for us." Sir Leopold McClintock was one of the first, if not the 
first, of polar explorers to point out that snowhouses are so com- 
fortable that their use would make arctic exploration a simpler, 
safer and pleasanter occupation ; but he went on to say that unfor- 
tunately white men cannot make them, and that he himself did 
the next best thing by erecting vertical walls of snow and roofing 
them over with a tarpaulin. He comments on the inferiority of 
this dwelling to the real snowhouses, but insists that it is greatly 
superior to the regulation tent. While it is odd that McClintock 
should be so far behind the Eskimos with whom he associated, 
in that he could not build the houses which they built with ease, 
it is also notable that so far as white men were concerned, he was 
a generation ahead of his time in realizing their value. Any one 
who tries it will agree with him that snow walls with a tarpaulin 
roof make a much better camp than the silk tents used by most 
explorers down to the present time. 

Following the idea that while snowhouses are excellent camps 
they are a sort of racial property of the Eskimos, Charles Francis 
Hall was comfortable in them as a guest of the Eskimos but never 
learned how to build one. The like was true of Schwatka and 
Gilder and later of Hanbury. Peary used them for years as built 
for him by the Eskimos, but it does not appear to have occurred 
to him to learn to build one. So it was curiously reserved for us 
to be the first explorers to build our own snowhouses for field use.* 
We have found by experience that an ordinarily adaptable man 
can learn snowhouse-building in a day. 

If four men cooperate in the building of a snowhouse, one 
usually cuts the blocks, a second carries them, a third is inside build- 
ing, and the fourth follows the builder around and chinks in all the 
crevices between the blocks with soft snow. In ten minutes the 
soft snow in the crevices has become harder than the blocks them- 
selves, so that the house, although fragile in process, is moderately 
strong within half an hour. 

When the snow dome has been otherwise finished, a tunnel is 
dug through the drift into the house, giving a sort of trap door 
entrance through the floor. Most Eskimos, failing to understand 
certain principles of thermodynamics, use a door in the side of the 

* So far as I know, the first explorer who took steps to have his men learn 
snowhouse building was Amundsen at King William Island. Two of his men 
took lessons one or two days, but the expedition does not seem later to have 
made use of whatever skill they acquired. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 177 

house. But it is obvious that if a door in the wall is open and if 
the interior of the house is being artificially heated, then warm air 
being lighter than cold, there will be a continual current of heated 
air going out through the upper half of the doorway, and a cold 
current from outside entering along the floor. If the door is on a 
level with the floor or a little below it, the warm air from the house 
cannot go out through the door, even with the door open, because 
warm air has no inclination except that of rising. Similarly cold 
air cannot come in through the door in the floor so long as the house 
above is filled with warmer air, for two bodies cannot occupy the 
same space at the same time. It is accordingly never necessary to 
close a door the top of which is on a level with the floor of the 
house or lower, and we leave our doors always open. In heating 
the house, whether by blue-flame kerosene stove, seal-oil lamp, or 
the bodies and breathing of people, poisons accumulate and venti- 
lation becomes necessary. So we have a ventilating hole in the 
roof, depending in diameter on conditions of external temperature, 
abundance of fuel and on whether people are awake or asleep. 
The cold fresh air from outside then wells up from the door below 
into the house as fast as and no faster than is necessary to replace 
the hot air passing out of the ventilator at the top. 

When the tunnel and door have been excavated, the bedding is 
passed into the house, and a layer of deerskins with the hair down 
is spread to cover the entire floor except just where the cooking is 
to be done. Over this layer we spread another layer of skins with 
the hair up. The reason for the double insulation is that the 
interior of the house is going to be warmer presently and people 
are going to sit around on the floor and later are going to sleep 
on it, and if the insulation were not practically perfect, the heat 
from the cooking and from the bodies of the sleepers would pene- 
trate through the bedding to the snow underneath, and by melting 
it would make the bedclothes wet. When the temperature of the 
weather outside, and consequently of the snow inside, is zero Fah- 
renheit or lower, a double layer of deerskins will prevent any thaw- 
ing underneath the bed, the snow there remaining as dry as sand 
in a desert. 

When the floor has been covered and the bedding, cooking gear, 
writing materials and other things brought in, a fire is lighted. 
The end to be gained if fuel is abundant is to heat the house until 
the snow in roof and walls begins to thaw. If the fuel allows it we 
sometimes bring the temperature temporarily as high as eighty 
degrees Fahrenheit, and then keep feeling of roof and walls to 



178 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

watch the progress of thawing. This, of course, is most rapid in~ 
the roof as the hot air accumulates against it, and usually the lowest 
tier of blocks near the floor does not thaw at all. Thawing pro- 
ceeds without dripping, because dry snow is the best sort of blotter 
and soaks the water into itself as fast as it forms. When the 
inner layer of the roof has become properly wet with the thawing 
and the walls damp to a less degree, we either put out the fire or 
make a large hole in the roof, or both, and allow the house to freeze. 
This glazes it on the inside with a film of ice, giving it far greater 
strength, with the further advantage that if you rub against the 
glazed surface scarcely anything will adhere to your clothing, 
while from the dry snow before the glazing takes place you would 
get your shoulder white, with a good deal of snow perhaps falling 
on the bed. 

Now the house is so strong that without taking special care 
any number of men could climb on top of it. Polar bears may 
and occasionally do walk over these houses and I have never known 
of one breaking. Their strength, however, is somewhat the same 
as the strength of an eggshell, and while they are difficult to crush 
with pressure, they are easy to break with a blow. A polar bear 
has no trouble in getting in if he wants to, for one sweep of his 
paw will scratch a great hole. 

If the house was built at fifty below zero, each block in the wall 
was of that temperature and contained what we may unscientifi- 
cally speak of as a great deal of "latent cold." To neutralize this 
it is necessary to keep a temperature of about sixty degrees Fahren- 
heit for a considerable time. Snow is so nearly a non-conductor 
of heat that when the ''latent cold" has once been neutralized, the 
heat of our bodies keeps the temperature well above the freezing 
point even with the hole in the roof open for ventilation. But if 
the weather gets a little warmer than when we made camp, our 
body heat may be too great or the cooking may raise the tem- 
perature high, and the roof will begin to melt. This we take not 
so much as a sign that the house is too warm as that the roof is 
too thick, so we send a man out with a knife to shave it thinner, 
perhaps from four down to two inches, giving the cold from outside 
a chance to penetrate and neutralize the heat from within, stopping 
the thawing. It may happen the next day that the weather turns 
colder again, and in that case hoar frost begins to form on the 
roof and drops in the form of snowflakes on the bed. That is a 
sign that the roof is now too thin and a man goes out with a 
shovel and piles on enough soft snow to blanket it. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 179 

Two hours after building is begun the dogs have been unhar- 
nessed, each tied in his place and fed, everything outside has been 
made snug for the night, and every man is comfortably inside the 
snowhouse, eating a warm supper. With a feeling of security that 
in the early part of our sea exploration was based merely on con- 
fidence in our theories but later came to rest on experience as well, 
we customarily sat after supper burning merrily the kerosene or 
seal oil, firm in the faith that to-morrow would provide fuel no less 
than food. This explains any seeming inconsistency between our 
accounts of warmth and well-being and the stories of others who, 
like us, have used snowhouses but have found them cold and com- 
fortless. They were on fuel rations and we were not. It was the 
economizing of fuel rather than the severity of the climate or the 
inadequacy of the housing that kept them cold. In many a well- 
appointed house in our civilized lands people have shivered in the 
last few years because they were on an allowance of fuel. It may 
well upset traditional ideas of the Arctic and of exploration to 
realize that when Europeans and Americans in the winter of 1917-18 
were wrapped in rugs before a coal-less grate or by a chilled radiator, 
our men were sitting in their shirt sleeves, warm and comfortable, 
in snowhouses built on the floating ice of the polar sea. 

I am in the habit of repeating and most of my companions 
agree that hardships are not necessarily involved in the work of 
the arctic explorer. On the sea ice, of course, there is the possi- 
bility that the cake on which you stand may break up. It is 
also true that most of us prefer other food to seal meat, but all 
of us who have spent more than a year "living off the country" 
are quite of the Eskimo opinion that there is no food anywhere 
better than caribou meat; and if you have any experience in the 
life of a hunter you will realize that in the winter when we are 
hunting on some such land as Banks Island and when we sit in 
these warm houses, feasting with keen appetites on unlimited quan- 
tities of boiled caribou ribs, we have all the creature comforts. 
What we lack, if we feel any lack at all, will be the presence of 
friends far away, or the chance to hear good music. At any rate, 
it is true that to-day in the movie-infested city I long for more 
snowhouse evenings after caribou hunts as I never in the North 
longed for clubs or concerts or orange groves. And this is not 
peculiar to myself. The men who have hunted with me are nearly 
all of the same mind. They are either in the North now, on the 
way back there by whaling ship, or eating their hearts out because 
they cannot go. 



180 ' THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

It is not possible to give to the wonderful dogs too much credit 
for any success on this journey. The day of April 17th, for in- 
stance, they were still hauling over two hundred pounds each. The 
snow was firm but rough, and the sled was continually going up 
and down over hard drifts. There were also pressure-ridges to 
cross, though none bad enough to necessitate the pickaxe. It is 
true that the dogs alone could not have taken the sled over some 
of the ridges, but it was only there that the men did the least bit 
to help. The rest of the time they were running beside the sled, 
commonly with hands resting on it, and I was running ahead. We 
made that day an average of nearly four miles an hour, which 
meant a speed of over five miles on the level stretches. 

Although the dogs themselves were excellent, part of this superi- 
ority was due to the harnessing. When dogs are harnessed fan- 
wise as they are in Greenland and as they have been by many 
explorers, it is only, as I have said, the dog in the middle of the 
team that can pull straight ahead; the others pull at considerable 
angles with the course of travel, so that a part of their force is lost. 
This in some measure explains why it is that few explorers have 
been able to haul more than a hundred pounds to the dog, which 
is less than half of what ours hauled. But I believe the main supe- 
riority was in the breed. 

In eleven years of experience in the Arctic I have used dogs of 
all sorts. Some were brought from Greenland by Amundsen on his 
Gjoa voyage of 1904-06 and left by him near the Mackenzie delta, 
where I used them. We have also at different times had a hundred 
or more Eskimo dogs from the district around Victoria Island, 
where this dog is presumably as pure as he is anywhere in the 
world, for there the people and consequently the dogs have been 
least in touch with the outside world. We have also used several 
hundred dogs of mixed Eskimo descent from the Mackenzie district 
and the north coast of Alaska, where the dogs as well as the Es- 
kimos themselves have been subject to outside contact for from 
thirty to a hundred years. We have had a few Siberian dogs and 
about fifty of the type most favored for driving by the miners around 
Nome, Alaska. On the basis of our experience with all these va- 
rieties we have come to a conclusion on the whole very unfavor- 
able to the Eskimo dog. 

For one thing, the Eskimo dog is too small. Those we have 
had ran in weight from fifty to seventy pounds, and to haul such a 
load as our six dogs were carrying would need at least nine of the 
best Eskimo dogs. The disadvantage of having nine dogs as against 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 181 

six is plain. There is the trouble of harnessing three more in the 
morning and of unharnessing, tying and feeding them in the evening. 
True, a bigger dog needs a little more food, but six dogs weighing 
120 pounds each will do well on less food than is necessary for 
nine dogs averaging 70 pounds. Incidentally I will point out here 
that much dissatisfaction with big dogs when used among smaller 
dogs rises from the fact that they are given a standard ration, each 
one getting a pound or a pound and a quarter of food. If this 
goes on for days or weeks, eventually the seventy-pound dog will 
be in full strength when the bigger dog has become weak from star- 
vation. Any intelligent white man can see why a big dog needs 
more food than a small one and can appreciate how he is going 
to get full value for the extra food. But every Eskimo with whom 
I have discussed the matter says that just as small men eat as 
much as big men, so small dogs should have as much food as big 
dogs, and Eskimo opinion is almost universally against the big dog, 
since he will not keep fat on a ration that suffices a small one. An- 
other great advantage of the big dog is that when after several 
months on sea ice we eventually land on some island, we have to 
cache our sleds and continue with pack dogs. Here I have found 
that size is of special importance. Not only will the bigger dog 
carry a heavier load, but he carries it higher above the ground. 
A small dog will drag his pack through water when a bigger dog 
carries it high and dry. 

Our big dogs have not been of any one breed. Some have been 
half Eskimo and half St. Bernard; others have been half mastiff, 
and some appear to have a considerable admixture of wolf. Just 
as with men, the excellence of dogs is largely a matter of tempera- 
ment. Here, next to his size, lies our grievance against the Eskimo 
dog. When he is fat and well cared for he works with a great deal 
of spirit, a sort of boyish exuberance. But as the boy has not the 
stamina of the man and wants to rest when he gets tired, so the 
Eskimo dog stops pulling when he feels like it. The white man's 
dog, in many cases at least, has character, or what corresponds to 
it. He seems to have a sense of duty, and especially if he is well 
treated will continue working hard though his stomach be empty 
and his legs tired. When the Eskimo dog is tired you will have 
to resort to the whip. This to me is always disagreeable. It is 
also my experience that you can no more get the best work out of 
a dog team by whipping them than a slave owner could get the 
best service out of enslaved men by inhumane treatment. I have 
seldom seen an Eskimo dog that will pull well the second day with- 



182 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

out food, but I have seen half-breed St. Bernards who would pull, 
perhaps not with the same strength, for that would be impossible, 
but with the same willingness day after day while their strength 
lasted. In our last five years' work we never lost a dog from 
hunger, and some of our dogs were never without food long enough 
to affect their willingness to work. The Eskimo dogs that had to 
meet the trial proved mostly quitters and needed a whip the 
second foodless day. 

The Eskimo dog has one advantage in the soundness of his 
feet, and another in his good fur. Certain kinds of white men's 
dogs have even better fur, but I know none that have feet as sound, 
or at least as little affected by adverse polar conditions. It is in 
this soundness of the feet that half Eskimo blood gives the chief 
advantage above the pure bred St. Bernard, whose fur also needs 
improvement. 



One of the most spectacular ice crushes of our experience hap- 
pened in our path on April 18th. A floe to the north was moving 
east with reference to ours at the rate of about twenty feet per 
minute. There was such force behind the two floes that although 
the ice was over six feet thick, their relative speed seemed undimin- 
ished even by their grinding against each other with a force that 
piled up a huge ridge. The ice buckled and bent for several hun- 
dred yards, but the ridge was on one side of us, and we were con- 
veniently able to retreat. The toppling ice cakes sounded at half a 
mile like a cannonade heard over a stormy surf on a rockbound 
coast. The surf-like noise was the actual grinding of the edges 
where the ice was being powdered rather than broken. There was, 
too, a high-pitched screeching, like the noise of a siren, when a 
tongue of six-foot ice from one floe was forced over the surface 
of the other. The pressure ceased in about two hours, when we 
crossed the newly-formed ridge and proceeded on our way. 

All this time we had been traveling in a direction a little west 
of north. But frequent observations for longitude showed that 
our course was a little east of north, which had to be accounted 
for by the eastward motion of the whole surface of the sea. By the 
20th we were entering a region of less and less game. We saw 
only about one polar bear track every twenty miles, and these 
tracks were mostly a month or two old. The scars on the ice show- 
ing the presence of seals the previous autumn became fewer, and 
we never saw any seals in the leads, although we occasionally 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 183 

stopped to watch for them an hour at a time. This was discon- 
certing and gave us a good deal of concern. With the decrease in 
game signs there came back to our memories with increasing weight 
the statements of the Eskimos on shore that we would find no seals 
at a great distance from land, and the arguments by which our 
whaler friends had bolstered up these views originally borrowed 
from the Eskimos. There came to mind with increasing force the 
dicta of geographers and explorers summarized in encyclopaedias and 
reiterated in every polar book, "the polar ocean without life." I 
had answered their arguments readily enough on shore, but was our 
verbal logic to be disproved by the superior logic of events? My 
diary shows that our faith was at times shaken, though never badly 
enough for us to talk seriously of turning back. 

My companions were as eager as I to make a success of the 
journey, and what worried us more than scarcity of game signs 
was the implacable advance of the sun in the heavens. It was get- 
ting perceptibly higher each day and there was no longer any dark- 
ness at night. The temperature still kept mercifully well below 
zero, but we knew it was only a question of days until the wind 
would change to the east and the first thaw of spring be upon us. 
Accordingly we said little of the danger of running out of food 
and much of the necessity of hurrying on, but most frequent were 
the remarks on our misfortune that we had not been able to start 
the journey a month earlier. It is doubtless true that there is no 
use crying over spilt milk, but it is equally true that there is noth- 
ing more human than to do so. 

The scarcity of game signs would have troubled us less had we 
had that understanding of the polar sea which we acquired during 
the next five years. We now know what we then but believed 
upon reasoning with which the authorities disagreed, that the 
presence or absence of seals has nothing to do with latitude as 
such, but mainly with the mobility of the ice. In any region where 
we have violent ice movement and consequently much open water, 
we have a large number of seals. Food they can find everywhere 
in the ocean but in certain places they lack the easy opportunity 
to come up and breathe. During the summer they congregate in 
regions of open water, deserting those where the ice lies approxi- 
mately unbroken. Then in the autumn when young ice forms they 
make for themselves breathing holes which they use all winter. 
If this young ice remains stationary the seal remains stationary 
with it. If it floats in any direction he travels along, for his life 
depends upon his never going far from his breathing hole so long 



184 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

as the ice around it remains unbroken. If it does break and if 
leads are formed he may do a certain amount of winter traveling, 
but this traveling ceases when the first hard frost forms new ice 
over the leads, which when open are the routes of travel. 

From the point of view of seal life there are in the polar ocean 
certain desert areas. They are caused by the sluggishness or ab- 
sence of currents, just as deserts on land are caused by lack of 
rainfall and porousness of the soil. And just as land deserts are 
restricted in area, so are the ocean deserts. The experienced over- 
land traveler crossing a new continent would know when he was 
entering a desert. It would then be a matter of judgment whether 
he was to turn back and give up his journey or whether he should 
attempt skirting the desert or making a dash across it. So it is 
when the ice traveler who depends on game for subsistence comes 
to one of these sea deserts. The signs are in the thickness and 
evident age of the ice, in the fewness of the leads and of other 
signs of motion, and in the absence of traces of seals on such patches 
of young ice as may be visible. Just as there are on land arid and 
semi-arid areas, so there are at sea regions of scarcity of seals and 
regions of their nearly complete absence. But just as on land a 
semi-arid belt with scant vegetation may be but the introduction 
to a real desert, so the area of scarce animal life into which we 
were entering might merge later into another of total barrenness. 

With summer imminent we all felt that speed was the main 
consideration, both for success and safety. Our loads were getting 
lighter as the supply of food grew smaller. But instead of restrict- 
ing our rations and tightening our belts we used to eat three full 
meals a day, and we fed the dogs almost to surfeit, with the idea 
that the more quickly the loads were lightened the greater our 
speed would be. We should really have thrown away one or two 
hundred pounds of food at the start, but we never had quite the 
strength of mind to do that. For one thing, the chocolate and 
malted milk were as yet more palatable to my companions than 
the less familiar seal meat. We pampered ourselves in disregard of 
good judgment and lightened the loads no faster than much feeding 
by men and dogs could do it. 

We were making a new departure in polar exploration, not only 
in intending to live by hunting when the food was gone but also 
in gormandizing while yet we had food. We were traveling over ice 
that floated over an unknown ocean, away from all known lands 
and without any intention of turning back soon. I think I have 
read nearly all north polar literature and I never read of any party 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 185 

that under such circumstances would not have tightened their belts 
and saved every scrap of food. I said so exultantly to my com- 
panions and Storkerson helped me exult, for he had lived by hunting 
for years and had acquired the hunter's temperament. But Ole had ^ 
more misgivings than he owned up to- , 

By April 23rd in latitude 75° 15' NJwe had entered an ice area 
of a new sort. Up to this time every visible lead had given evi- 
dence of much lateral motion; that is, the floe on one side had 
evidently been moving east or west with reference to the floe on 
the other side. But here we came to leads which had been opening 
and closing at intervals all winter without any lateral motion. 
There would be a belt of three or four-foot ice formed a little after 
Christmas; then might come a belt of fifteen or twenty-inch ice 
formed a month or so ago, and in the center of the lead five or 
eight-inch ice not more than a week old. A lead of three such 
belts evidently had opened only three times during the winter, but 
there were others which showed they had opened half a dozen 
times or more. But whether in four-foot ice or eighteen-inch ice, 
the break when the lead had opened had never been a straight line. 
Little projections and peninsulas on one side corresponded to inden- 
tations and bays on the other side, and when we found that, we 
knew the ice movement had been a simple opening where the sides 
of the crack had withdrawn straight away from each other without 
the lateral motion common inshore. In other words, this ice was 
either not drifting at all, or the areas on both sides of the leads 
were drifting in the same direction and at the same speed. 

For the present we had light northwest breezes and our sextant 
observations showed we were drifting each day a very little to 
the east. But as we knew that Banks Island was to the east and 
only a few hundred miles away, we believed this slight drift due to 
nothing but the crushing and buckling of the ice against the Banks 
Island coast.* 

Up to April 25th we had been traveling daytimes and sleeping 

*We now believe that, for a reason unknown, there is an eddy in the 
Beaufort Sea. We know from observation that at certain seasons there is 
a westward movement of the ice along the north coast of Alaska. It carried 
the Karluk a thousand miles in four months, from Camden Bay, Alaska, to 
Wrangel Island. This westward current seems but the continuation of a 
southward current we have observed on every occasion west of Banks Island 
and Prince Patrick Island. We suppose there is a corresponding eastward 
current ojfshore north of Alaska. Three hundred miles or more north of 
Alaska the current is east, we think, bending south at Prince Patrick Island 
and west when it comes near the mainland. A glance at the map will make 
this clear. 



186 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

at night, but on this date we changed to night travel. The season 
was too late for snowhouses and the light at night was sufficient 
for traveling. Although my diary contains almost every day some 
expression of thankfulness that the cold weather and westerly winds 
were continuing, the temperature at noon had become such that 
snow was melting on any dark surface, though it might be below 
zero in the shade. We could now take solid comfort in our day- 
time camps, for the tents which kept the wind off let the bright 
sunshine through and heated the interior — even, once or twice, to 
an undesirable warmth. And we no longer had to take pains to 
keep our clothing dry, for by camping in the morning we could 
hang damp garments in the sun and get them dried before evening. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

WE BURN THE LAST BRIDGE BEHIND US 

THE distance covered April 25th was twenty-four miles, a good 
day with a bad ending, for towards camping timt the wind 
made the dreaded shift to the east, with fog and a light fall of 
snow. This meant probably drifting west, so that if we desired to 
travel east we should meet leads of open water running north and 
south parallel to the distant coasts of Banks and Prince Patrick 
Islands, and making a landing on either of them more difficult. 

Now that the east wind was upon us the temperature rose, and 
the leads formed by the ice motion refused to freeze over. When 
the temperature is twenty or forty degrees below zero, as in Feb- 
ruary or March, the opening of a lead is not a serious matter. It 
may stop you one day, but the next it has been bridged and you 
can cross it if it happens to lie athwart your course. Occasionally 
luck is such that it lies almost in the direction you are going. In 
that case the ice traveler can have no better fortune than to meet 
with a lead. If he finds it already frozen over, it is as if he had 
come out of the woods upon a paved road, and if it is still open 
he knows that a little wait and a night's encampment will convert 
it into a boulevard for fast and easy traveling next day. But at 
the end of April, even though the lead may be running in your 
direction and though it may be a week old and the ice six or ten 
inches thick, still, it is so soft and treacherous from the weakness 
of the frost that it does not form a safe road and a bridge of older 
ice must be found. 

A day with the east wind as well as our theoretical knowledge 
of ice conditions decided us at this point to alter our course. We 
were in the vicinity of north latitude 73° and west longitude 141°. 
With a week or two more of cold weather (or, as we used to say 
"Had we started two weeks earlier") we could have kept on north 
for two degrees of latitude and then turned east for a landing on 
the southwest corner of Prince Patrick Island. But clearly the 
season was too late for that. So we decided to take roughly a great 
circle course for Cape Alfred, on the northwest corner of Banks 

187 



188 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Island. At the time of turning east we had on hand 147 pounds 
of man food and 74 pounds of dog food, which meant provisions 
for men for about fifteen days and for dogs for about ten days. 

Under date of April 26th I wrote under the caption "Plans" the 
longest diary entry of the whole trip. This was because we had 
come in a sense to a parting of the ways. We were two hundred 
miles from Alaska, we had provisions for two weeks only, and the 
signs of game were getting fewer every day. Without having ex- 
actly lost faith in the presence of seals in every part of the Arctic, 
my men were becoming a little dubious about it. We had been 
drifting before light northwesterly airs, but now we were encamped 
on a solid floe waiting to see the effect of the east wind. If it 
drifted us west with great rapidity I should have turned reluctantly 
towards Alaska, for a westward drift would mean a great deal 
of open water between us and Banks Island. On the other hand, 
should we not drift materially to the west we had in this a sign 
that the ice was fairly continuous from us to Banks Island where 
we might hope for a landing. The north coast of Alaska is known 
to be subject in spring to violent ice movement and the current 
is considered to be prevailingly westward. I thought then and still 
think that any attempt to land in May or June on the north coast 
of Alaska with a sledge party coming from the Beaufort Sea has 
the imminent hazard of being swept by the current west beyond 
Alaska into the ocean north of Bering Straits. 

When I am lost in a storm, or when I am in doubt of any 
kind, I frequently find that my feelings, or so-called "instincts," 
are in conflict with deliberate reason, and I have invariably found 
that the "instincts" are unreliable. I may have the strongest feel- 
ing, which almost amounts to a conviction, that my camp lies in 
a certain direction, for example, when a careful review of circum- 
stances shows that it really ought to lie in another. I confess that 
I now had similarly, in common with the men, the feeling that 
our safety lay in returning over the known route to Alaska, but 
all available facts indicated that such an attempt would be the 
most hazardous course. To the south lay known dangers but to 
the east we were in complete ignorance of conditions, and by ele- 
mentary reasoning the chances were at least even that the condi- 
tions towards Banks Island of which we knew nothing would be as 
good as the conditions to the south, which we knew to be bad. 

My companions were more strongly impressed with the dangers 
of the unknown. They pointed out that we knew that the sealing 
to the south was good, while it might easily be bad to the east. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 189 

They said that were we to land on Alaska we should find a settled 
coast, but that in Banks Island we had an uninhabited country 
where game might be scarce ; moreover, our ships were to the south, 
and were we to return to them we could sail north to Banks Island 
during the coming summer. Now as to sailing to Banks Island in 
ships, my objection was that we should be compelled by the ice to 
skirt the mainland coast part of the way, or at the best make a 
diagonal course from Herschel Island to Cape Kellett. In doing 
this we should be sailing through waters that have been sailed by 
whalers since 1889, while our ice journey along the great circle 
course to Cape Alfred would take us through territory unsailable 
and unknown. Exploration of unknown territory was of the high- 
est importance, and was the main duty assigned us by the Govern- 
ment. 

But all considerations were outweighed by the dangers of return 
to Alaska. I believe the chances are at least three in four that any 
party attempting this late in the month of May from a distance 
to seaward as great as ours would be swept to the west beyond Point 
Barrow. If they were on a sohd ice floe they might survive the 
summer in the ocean east of Wrangel Island, but that also is an 
explored area and the summer would be wasted. If the floe were 
to get into the open in the vicinity of Point Hope, wave action 
might break it into fragments, with the probability if not certainty 
of a tragic ending. This view has been strengthened, so far as 
the year 1914 was concerned, by the fact that all whalers and Es- 
kimos on the north coast of Alaska have told me that that season 
proved an especially open one and that the inshore ice during the 
spring was in continual rapid westward motion. This indeed was 
one of the reasons why our death was so universally assumed among 
them. They did not conceive of the possibility of our having gone 
to Banks Island, but felt sure we would attempt a landing on the 
Alaska coast. Conditions there being exceedingly bad, it was be- 
lieved that we had either been lost in some hazardous traverse 
over ice made rotten by the spring thaws, or been drifted into the 
sea west of Barrow.* 

* This opinion was given added weight by Captain Pedersen, who upon 
his return to San Francisco gave out a newspaper interview in which, after 
complimentary references to our ability to live by hunting, he said that our 
only chance of survival was that we might in the following autumn or spring 
be able to make a landing on Wrangel Island, the New Siberian Islands, 
or some other part of northeastern Siberia. This opinion of an ice master 
who knows more than any one else about sea conditions north of Alaska as 
encountered by whaling ships, became the chief reason why the eyes of those 
friends who still had hope of our being alive were turned thousands of 



190 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

It was a bit hard for me to persuade the men to continue 
towards Banks Island. Storkerson was used to living on meat, and 
that part of our future did not worry him, but this was not the case 
with Ole, who had the dread of a meat diet common to those who 
have not tried it. But when their minds were made up to take the 
risk they became wholly enthusiastic for the plan and energetic in 
carrying it out. 

This is a proper place for a tribute to those qualities which made 
my companions ideal comrades under difficult conditions, but as 
the qualities themselves appear constantly in this narrative I shall 
not attempt a tribute more direct, for it would be certain to fall 
short of my feelings and desires. 



For the first few days after turning towards Cape Alfred we 
found good level ice, and the leads all proved to have crossing 
places so that we were able to make from fifteen to twenty-five 
miles per day. The night between May 2nd and May 3rd we had 
the midnight sun for the first time. No more than a third of it 
went that night below the ice horizon. 

The first ten days of May were a period of anxiety. The sun 
was rising mercilessly higher and higher and we struggled towards 
Banks Island with the fear of summer upon us. Kerosene gave 
out May 5th, but we saw no sea;ls in any of the leads and dared not 
wait and watch for them, for every hour was precious. When we 
wanted something to cook with, necessity invented it. As part of 
our bedding we carried two grizzly bear skins, and we had a pair of 
scissors. The long hair of the skins proved effective, though scarcely 
fragrant, and half a pelt was enough to cook the meals for a day. 
After a long period of gorging ourselves to lighten our loads, we 
now found the sled nearly empty and went on half rations for the 
only time on the whole expedition. This abstemiousness resulted 
from our unwillingness to stop and hunt, for we were now sure that 
the warm weather was going to make it difficult to reach Banks 
Island, and were even beginning to fear it might make a landing 
before next fall impossible. This, in turn, would result in our miss- 
ing the Star at the Norway Island rendezvous. The dogs were on 

miles farther west than the point at which my written word had said we 
would make our landing. It is interesting to me, though scarcely jflattering, 
that I have found among hundreds of editorials and thousands of news 
stories from the daily papers, not one opinion to the effect that we should 
be found where I had said the North Star was to look for us. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 191 

half rations, too, for the same dread of summer weather which pre- 
vented our stopping to hunt seals for ourselves prevented our hunt- 
ing seals for them. 

1 find from reading my diary that this period was more anxious 
than I now realize. Our faith was really firm but, like some of the 
believers of old, we had an occasional hour of doubt. The theory 
was mine, so I felt more free than either of my companions to 
criticize it, and sometimes in the evening after a hard day's march 
I wrote down that it was possible after all that Eskimos and whalers 
and polar explorers were right and that food might prove scarce 
on the Arctic ice. We were passing open lead after open lead 
without the sight of a seal; though I reminded myself that in some 
of the best sealing waters of northern Alaska I had spent days and 
often weeks watching beside open water without seeing a seal, and 
then one morning I would come down to the water to find a dozen 
swimming about within gunshot. I hoped and expected that it 
would prove so again whenever we should be forced at last to stop 
for hunting. 

Besides the advancing summer we had a second argument for 
traveling fast towards Banks Island. This was that Eskimos, 
whalers and explorers alike believed seals to be more common in 
the vicinity of land than in the deep waters far offshore. If this 
were true, the nearer we got to Banks Island the better the chances 
would be of getting food when provisions ran out. 

Perhaps as a result of being on short rations, I find several 
diary notes on the comparative excellence of various kinds of food. 
We had with us pemmican, bacon, butter, peameal, rice, chocolate, 
and malted milk. We found ourselves in agreement that four 
pounds per day of peameal and butter or peameal and bacon for 
the three of us was a more satisfactory diet than six pounds of 
pemmican and biscuits. For one thing, the standard explorers' 
breakfast of pemmican, biscuit and tea predisposes to thirst. There 
is no difficulty in quenching thirst by eating snow once you have 
rid yourself of the curious superstition that snow-eating is danger- 
ous, but even at that it is preferable not to become thirsty. 

Unless it be religion, there is no field of human thought where 
sentiment and prejudice take the place of sound knowledge and 
logical thinking so completely as in dietetics. It is therefore not 
surprising that actual experiments with diet, especially those insti- 
tuted by stern necessity, should yield results contrary to conven- 
tional expectations. I have never met any one inclined to believe 
that he would find suitable and in every way satisfactory as a diet 



192 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

for a long period a thin stew or soup made from rice, butter, choco- 
late and malted milk boiled together. But a dozen men have now 
tried this diet on our ice trips and most of us prefer it to anything 
else we have tried. Some of my men, partly because they were 
sailors with acquired food tastes, have preferred peameal in place 
of rice. In point of theory peameal would undoubtedly be better 
than rice if the chocolate were absent, but so long as there is choco- 
late to supply the protein I prefer the rice; if for no other reason, 
because it is easy to cook. 

Many travelers have refrained from carrying rice in the belief 
that it was not easy to cook. True, the cook-books tell you some 
such thing as that you should boil rice for twenty minutes. This 
would surely be a waste of fuel for those who travel on fuel rations, 
although for ourselves we need not care. But we have found that 
if we put the rice into cold water and when the pot comes to a 
boil set it aside for a few minutes, the rice is thoroughly cooked 
before it cools enough for eating, and not more than one minute 
of actual boiling is needed. We used no more fuel in boiling a pot 
of rice than Peary used in making a pot of tea. On some trips 
we have carried things as difficult to cook properly as beans. 
Time for cooking them cannot be taken except on stormbound 
days, but on such occasions boiling them is a pastime. 

I am now of the opinion that the fewness of the seal signs at 
distances of two or three hundred miles from shore was due mainly 
to the hurry we were in. The level places where they might have 
been found happened only occasionally to be on our actual route, 
and as we never felt we could stop and look around, nothing could 
be noticed except what was actually in our way. How much is it 
explicable, then, that others may have failed entirely to notice seal 
signs because they have been possessed with the idea that there 
was no use looking for game signs when game was absent, or else 
that seals if present could not be secured? For well-known explor- 
ers, so far as I know, have not been experienced seal-hunters as 
Storkerson and I were, and seem to have been quite unfamiliar, 
with the technique of seal hunting, even theoretically. 

On the evening of May 7th our faith in the presence of seals 
had confirmation. We had pitched camp on the shore of a lead 
about a mile wide, covered with young ice not strong enough to 
bear a man. We had camped a little earlier than usual, and while 
the men were cooking supper I sat for about an hour on top of a 
high ice hummock, studying the lead with binoculars for several 
miles in both directions as though I had been on a hilltop near the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 193 

bank of a large river. The glasses showed roughnesses on the 
young ice, but from their distance I could not be sure that they 
had actually been made by seals coming up to breathe. I don't 
know whether it was a sign of the weakness or the strength of my 
faith that when after an hour's watching I saw the head of a seal 
come up through the ice about a mile away, I gave an involuntary 
shout that brought my companions out of the tent. 

A seal a mile away in mush ice is as safe from the hunter as 
if he were on the other side of the earth. Furthermore, we still 
had food for two or three days at half rations and we were really 
enjoying the experience of sailing close to the wind, although I 
do not think the same can be said of the dogs, lacking our point of 
view. All three of us might have taken our station beside the lead, 
to wait the possible reappearance of the seal close enough for kill- 
ing. I think Ole felt something like doing it, for he was always 
a great one for "playing safe" and this was his first experience 
of "living off the land." But Storkerson and I had acquired the 
typical Indian or Eskimo attitude. Instead of using every effort 
to get this first visible seal, we merely satisfied ourselves that he 
actually was a seal and that we were now in seal country, and 
then went back to the tent to feast our minds on anticipated seals 
and to indulge ourselves at one meal with half our remaining and 
for the last few days hoarded food. With about a day's food 
actually on hand, we thanked our stars that the time of measuring 
it by other standards than our appetites was over, and assured 
each other that we would never again be so skeptical of the bounties 
of the Arctic as to begin limiting our eating while we had a week's 
store ahead. 

Those who have never undergone hunger expect death from it to 
result in a short time. Going without food for a few days consti- 
tutes in the imagination of some a great hardship — a curious belief 
to persist and be so nearly universal when the few people who 
have tried it for a considerable number of days tell us that little 
suffering is involved, unless it be mental. The prisoner who waits 
in a comfortable cell and has several good meals brought him each 
day may undergo agonies if he has a sufficient imagination and 
knows that the electric chair is only a few days off. So it may 
have been on occasion with polar explorers, that when their food 
was gradually giving out they suffered mental anguish because of 
the death which in their mind's eye they saw coming upon them. 
Had they been of optimistic temperament, expecting deliverance 
in one form or another, their suffering as such would scarcely have 



194 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

been worth the name, though they might have starved to the point 
of extreme weakness. Physical suffering may well have accompa- 
nied the mental anguish in such cases as that of the Greely Expe- 
dition at Cape Sabine, for with them hunger was kept at a tanta- 
lized wakefulness for half a year by food enough to keep up appe- 
tite though it could not sustain strength. They knew each day 
they would not get enough and doubted — three out of four of them 
rightly — whether summer and the relief ship would find them alive. 
Simple starvation, that comes to death in a few weeks, any one 
should choose readily in preference to, for instance, cancer, which 
will carry off one in nine of our friends who have passed middle 
life. But no moral trial can have been harder, no death more cruel, 
than that of Greely's men. 

In the light of the four succeeding years I still approve of the 
rejoicing of May 7th and the light-heartedness with which we then 
looked towards the future. Relying merely on memory, I should 
now be unable to realize that four days later a mental reaction had 
set in and we were again in the depths of gloom. Summer with 
its adverse traveling conditions was making itself more and more 
felt. What we now feared was no immediate disaster but failure 
to make a landing on Banks Island so as to meet the Star at the 
appointed rendezvous. My diary entry for May 11th says some- 
thing of that kind: 

"The lead that stopped us yesterday closed during the night 
by the young ice fast to our floe coming in touch with the opposite 
'shore.' Storkerson, who had this watch, did not consider the 
young ice a safe bridge for crossing and neither did Ole, who had 
the watch from two o'clock to four-thirty. When he called me for 
my watch I at once investigated the young ice and found it rotten 
and treacherous but six inches thick, and so decided to take chances. 
We crossed safely at 6:10. Traveled about E. 10° N. 12 miles to 
12:54 o'clock (A. M. May 11th) where we stopped to melt some 
snow for drinking. The ice crossed to-day was 75 per cent, of it 
one or more years old. There was much soft snow everywhere and 
the body of the sled frequently dragged in it — this is another of the 
many times we have missed the toboggan-bottomed skd which 
Wilkins took ashore. The going to-day was fairly level. Crossed 
three leads of four-inch young ice, rotten because of the warm 
weather — this is dangerous work, but we have been on short rations 
for a week — the dogs are living on our skin clothes — so it is up to 
us to take a few chances. I shall never again willingly (and I 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 195 

can hardly be said to have done it willingly this time) be on the 
ice 60 late in the season. Had we been six days earlier we should 
have had frosty weather to Banks Island and should be there now. 
As it is, the issue seems doubtful, and Storkerson and Ole may 
prove right after all in thinking our enterprise dangerous. 

"After a rest and making some drinking water, we started again 
at 3:15 A. M. and camped at 7:15, as it was getting too warm for 
the dogs to pull well and the snow was melting on our clothing and 
making us wet. Distance traveled, about 18 miles east 110° N. 

''Yesterday we awoke to find the long siege of easterly wind over 
for the time. By 6 A. M. it was blowing from the northwest ten 
miles an hour, increasing by 8 A. M. to about northwest 15 miles. 
During the day the wind shifted to about west 10° south. In the 
evening thickly clouded in the southwest and some snow fell be- 
fore midnight. Sun barely visible most of the day and the light 
very trying on the eyes. About 3 A. M. we saw from northeast 
to southeast what Storkerson and Ole think was a mirage of land. 
It looked through my glasses like clouds undulating around oval- 
topped mountains. Crossed two more leads over the same sort of 
rotten and sloppy four-inch ice. In one case the ice bent so badly 
under the sled that for a minute or two we expected it to break 
through, which might have proved fatal to all of us, although to 
give a certain margin of safety I always carry my rifle over my 
shoulder and about fifty rounds of ammunition. The west wind is 
doing brave work for us, closing the leads partly though it is not 
strong enough yet to have closed any of them completely. There 
is lateral motion discernible at all the leads. The floe west of each 
lead appears to be moving south about a foot in five minutes with 
reference to the floe next east of it. The floes are also approaching 
each other and crumbling a little on the edges. I suppose the pres- 
sure is so mild because there is a great deal of open water between 
us and Banks Island with nothing solid to obstruct the eastward 
motion of the ice." 

I have quoted this entry in full, except for the meteorological 
observations, to show what sort of records I was in the habit of 
keeping. Many of the entries are a good deal more detailed, giv- 
ing information of the kind of ice, or mention of signs of game, 
"pink snow" and other botanical and zoological phenomena. Full 
reproduction of such notes would be tedious in a book intended 
for general reading, although it is really these that constitute the 
larger part of the scientific information gained. This detailed in- 



196 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

formation with the conclusions to be drawn from it is made part 
of a series of scientific reports on the work of the expedition pub- 
lished by the Canadian Government.* 

By May 13th we had fed to the dogs several pairs of worn-out 
skin boots, the two grizzly bear skins off which we had used the hair 
for fuel, and some other bedding. We ourselves were on a ration 
of three-quarters of a pound of food per day, at which rate there 
remained enough for two or three days only. It seemed to me 
that this was about as close to the wind as we ought to sail, so 
after traveling eleven miles that day we stopped beside open water 
to watch for seals. During the first two hours we saw several and 
killed two. This was encouraging so far as it went, although our 
hopes had a severe blow through the prompt sinking of both as 
soon as they had been shot. Here was another of my theories 
that might have gone wrong. It is familiar knowledge that in the 
vicinity of land seals killed in winter will in most cases float, while 
if killed in the spring they sink. Common belief among the Es- 
kimos and whalers was that they sink because in the spring the 
seals are not as fat as in winter. My view was that they sank 
probably because in the spring the rivers bring a large amount 
of fresh water to the ocean, thus reducing the salinity of the water 
near land. Everyone knows that eggs and potatoes will float in 
brine, and that in many of the salt lakes it is impossible for a 
bather to sink, while swimming in salt water is easier than in fresh. 
I had reasoned that, although seals when shot in the spring might 
sink near shore where the water was comparatively fresh, they 
would float if killed at distances remote from land where the water, 
at least up to the beginning of the summer thaws on the ice, would 
have the same degree of salinity in May as in February. 

The sinking of the first two seals killed was a bit disconcerting, 
although we explained it by recalling that a certain small percen- 
tage of seals will sink at any season. There is no denying that 
after this experience we had a troubled day. At none of several 
leads that we passed did we dare to risk stopping, for fear any seals 
killed might sink, leaving nothing to pay us for time lost in the 
hunting. 

The dogs had become noticeably thinner. Had they been Es- 

* For information regarding the scientific reports of the expedition, address 
Deputy Minister of Naval Service, Ottawa. Three octavo volumes are now 
ready. The entire series of reports will probably fill between twenty and 
thirty octavo volumes. It will doubtless be several years till the last volume 
is ready. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 197 

kimo dogs all of them would have quit pulling or could have been 
driven only with the whip. But only one of these dogs was a quit- 
ter; the other five still pulled their best. The quitter was a little 
fatter than the others, for he had begun to save his strength as soon 
as he became hungry. No amount of whipping would make him 
pull an ounce. In circumstances such as these the conventional 
attitude towards a dog is that he ought to be killed, but we knew 
that Bones, as we called him, because he was usually so fat that 
his ribs and even his backbone were difficult to feel, was a good 
dog when well fed and would be useful again when we killed a 
seal for food. I admit a little resentment towards him, especially 
when I saw how well the others pulled who were leaner; still, I 
could never see why feeling should take the place of judgment, 
nor why I should kill a dog because he lacked character. Bones 
did, as a matter of fact, live to serve us many years. But we were 
careful never to take him again on a trip where emergencies of 
short rations were likely to arise. 

A depressed evening followed a depressed day and my diary 
has here about the gloomiest entry of the volume. Under the 
heading of "Traveling Seasons," I now read: "It is difficult and 
dangerous to be traveling out on the sea ice in this latitude of the 
Beaufort Sea after May first. If we should get strong easterly 
winds now, for instance, our chances of reaching Banks Island 
would be small, as the few seals here seem to sink and we are 
nearly out of food. It is a hard thing now to think back on the 
silly jealousies that made Storkerson's work of preparing for this 
ice trip stand still for two weeks till I got home — I expected to 
find everything ready at Martin Point so we could leave for the 
ice while the midwinter frosts held instead of when spring was 
upon us as it had to be, after we had done the work of prepara- 
tion which Storkerson could easily have done earlier if he had had 
the proper assistance." It is usually so when things go badly. One 
thinks back to the perversities of human nature which can, if one 
keeps that point of view, be seen as the source of all one's evil for- 
tune. 



CHAPTER XIX 

WE SECURE OUR FIRST SEAL 

MAY 15th it had come to a shown-down. The leads were get- 
ting more numerous and we had great trouble in finding 
crossings. Evidences that the ice was drifting to the west 
were multiplying and it was certain that we could not get ashore in 
Banks Island until a westerly wind began to drive the ice east 
toward the land. When we came now to a lead we stopped and 
made up our minds we would not move again until we had a seal. 
During the first three or four hours two seals came up within two 
hundred yards of me and I killed both. And they sank. 

Then followed an hour or two of waiting, at the end of which 
one came up about two hundred and fifty yards from the hummock 
where I was lying, although only a few yards from the edge of 
the lead. The sun was behind me and the light just right. Here 
the flat trajectory of a rifle that has a velocity of over 3,100 feet, 
as mine had, has the great advantage that one does not have to 
worry about estimating distances. Seals often show their shoulders 
out of the water as far as the region of the heart, but when there is 
danger of their sinking a body wound is undesirable. My bullet 
went through the brain, and the dead seal floated so high that I 
could see instantly he was safe. Storkerson was watching and his 
repeated shouts of "It floats!" would have dehghted the hearts of 
the manufacturers of a certain kind of soap. 

That evening the diary was as hopeful as it had been appre- 
hensive the day before. *'It is lucky we wrote woe and foreboding 
in our diaries yesterday. There is nothing of the sort to-day to 
write about. We are having the first full meal for over a week. 
No more equal divisions of small portions of food into rations." 

As if for further encouragement we saw this day the first bear 
track in two weeks. A female with two cubs had been traveling 
south along one of the leads. For two or three days we had been 
seeing about one fox track per day, but for a week or two before 
that not more than one every three or four days. Our struggle 
to reach the land-fast ice of Banks Island was no less strenuous. 

198 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 199 

The first relaxation was a day of rest deliberately taken to feed 
up the dogs and to celebrate with feasts of fresh boiled seal meat 
our vindicated theory. But the day deliberately taken was fol- 
lowed by two days of idleness enforced. 

On the feast day the sun was bright and warm, and instead of 
using our Burberry tent double as was our custom, we used only 
the outer cover so as to allow the sun to penetrate and warm up 
the interior. The Burberry in cold weather was perhaps not perfect 
but certainly the best tent that we know anything about. It was 
conical in shape but otherwise resembled an umbrella, in that five 
bamboo sticks corresponding to umbrella ribs were fastened at 
equal intervals to the tent cloth and joined at the top with hinges. 
These bamboo ribs were inside the outer cover and from them was 
suspended by strings an inner tent, also of Burberry cloth, giving 
an air space of an inch and a half or two inches between the 
cloths. This double tent when the temperature outdoors was at 
zero would be at least twenty degrees warmer inside than if we 
had used a single cover. As the difference in weight is only about 
four pounds, carrying a double tent is well worth while, especially 
as it has incidental advantages. Hoar frost will form on the inside 
of a single tent if the weather is near zero, and this not only makes 
the tent heavy but falls in the form of flakes upon the bedding at 
night and tends to make it wet. With two covers, hoar frost will 
not form on the inside one unless the temperature out of doors 
is considerably below zero. If a little frost does form between 
the tents this does little harm, for by beating the outside with a 
stick ninety per cent, can be shaken out when the tent is pulled 
down. Two further advantages are that it can be pitched by 
two or three men in a fraction of a minute, almost as quickly as an 
umbrella can be opened, and that once pitched the bamboo ribs 
keep it from flapping as badly as other tents do, just as a ribbed 
umbrella is kept from flapping. It will also stand any arctic gale 
if properly pitched. The only time ours ever blew down was in 
the gale that separated us from Wilkins and Castel, and that was 
because we had pitched it on a little patch of glare ice so that 
it shd bodily before the wind. 

The day we rested we had used the single tent instead of the 
double, and the bright sunshine penetrated the one cloth so easily 
that during the day we became snowblind. This was something 
no one of us had dreamed could happen. We had all had touches 
at various times of snowblindness acquired out of doors, but the 
thought never occurred to us that our eyes might be affected in 



200 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

a tent. The attack was not severe, but it is true with snowblind- 
ness if it is true with anything that an ounce of prevention is worth 
a pound of cure. As soon as we realized what had happened we put 
up again the inner cover of the tent, spread some canvas over the 
outside to make it darker, and then put on our amber-colored 
glasses and sat or slept inside until our eyes were normal again. 

Through great care of my eyes I have never in ten winters spent 
north of the arctic circle become completely snowblind, though one 
of my eyes has been frequently affected. When one eye is better 
than the other, as is the case with most people, the poorer eye is 
the one affected. The glare of the snow appears brighter to the 
eye of keener vision, and that eye is instinctively closed or shielded. 
When you have once begun to shield one eye, it becomes increas- 
ingly difficult to keep it open, for the reason that an eye which 
has been in darkness is blinded by a light which does not blind an 
eye that has been continually exposed to it. The whole strain of 
seeing thus falls upon the weaker eye and it accordingly is at- 
tacked first. Those who become snowblind in both eyes simul- 
taneously have either used their will power to keep both eyes open 
or else have eyes of nearly equal quality. 

From this it might be inferred that snowblindness is most 
likely to occur on days of clear sky and bright sun. This is not 
the case. The days most dangerous are those when the clouds 
are thick enough to hide the sun but not heavy enough to produce 
what we call heavily overcast or gloomy weather. Then light is 
so evenly diffused that no shadows can be seen anywhere. The sea 
ice is not level; if there are no actual snags of broken ice sticking 
up, there are at least snowdrifts. When the sun is shining in a 
clear sky all these unevennesses are easily seen, because shadows 
lie in the low places, but on a day of diffused light everything looks 
level, as was observed in respect to travel under cloudy skies. 
You may collide against a snow-covered ice cake as high as your 
waistline and, far more easily, you may trip over snowdrifts a foot 
or so in height, because without the assistance of shadows every- 
thing that is pure white seems to be perfectly level. Knowing the 
danger, your eyes are continually strained for its detection. Here 
amber-colored glasses are of use, for unevennesses imperceptible 
to the bare eye can sometimes be seen by the aid of these "ray 
filters," as they are called in photography. This is one of the 
advantages of the amber glass over all other forms of protection 
against snowblindness. Glass of ''chlorophyll green" is excellent 
when the sun is shining, and seems to be easier on the eye than dark 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 201 

or so-called "smoke glasses," which are the poorest of all. Almost 
any color will do when the sun is out, but in cloudy weather both 
the chlorophyll green and the smoked glasses cut out too much 
light and interfere so with clearness of vision that they are a distinct 
handicap as compared with the amber glass. 

When through the use of poor glasses or none at all your eyes 
are stricken, the symptoms do not develop at the time of exposure. 
It may be after a long day's march that when you enter the tent 
or snowhouse in the evening your eyes feel as if there were small 
grains of sand in them. Such things as tobacco smoke or slight 
fumes from a poorly-trimmed lamp will make them water exces- 
sively. Gradually you begin to feel more sand in them and they 
become uncomfortable and sore, but it will be towards morning be- 
fore shooting pains begin. These pains resemble those of earache 
or toothache and are said by persons who have had severe cases 
to be the most intense they ever experienced. 

One feature of snowblindness is that each attack predisposes to 
another. People who have never been in snow countries are likely 
to remain immune and not suffer until the eyes have been exces- 
sively exposed, but people such as the Eskimos who are subject 
to the predisposing conditions every year are very readily affected. 
Some of them have a sort of fatalistic idea that snowblindess is 
inevitable and for that reason do not take enough precautions, al- 
though they nearly always take some precautions. I have known 
the severest cases of snowblindness chiefly among Eskimos. Men 
whom I have reason to consider as stoical as the ordinary lie 
moaning in bed with a skin or blanket over their heads, sleepless 
for as much as twenty-four hours. The period of considerable 
pain seldom extends over more than three days if one is in a dark- 
ened room or wears black or amber glasses. After complete recov- 
ery a second attack is not likely to come in less than a week, no 
matter how the eyes are exposed, but careless persons will have 
attacks every week or ten days.* 

Keeping the eye on some dark object is a valuable preventive. 
On some trips we have had only one pair of amber glasses which 

*I have read a novel where the plot hinges on two things: (1) that a 
snowblind person is temporarily stone blind; and (2) that when you have 
recovered from snowblindness you can still pretend to be snowblind. The 
first premise is ridiculous and the second untenable. A snowblind person is 
not blind in any such sense as is required by the plot of this novel. During 
severe snowblindness the tears flow as rapidly as in violent weeping. This 
condition is difficult to simulate when you are getting better. Further, in the 
movie made from the story no attempt is made by the snowblind actress to 
simulate tears while she is supposed to be pretending to be snowblind. 



202 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

have been used by the man who goes ahead and picks trail, for he 
alone has to use his eyes continually upon the white surface. The 
men who walk at the sleds to prevent them from upsetting are 
able to keep their eyes on its dark cover or upon the dogs. 

Another preventive is the Eskimo type of wooden protectors. 
This may be of a variety of designs, but the essential feature is 
always the same. The light is admitted to the eye through a nar- 
row slit. The disadvantage is that you have only a limited field 
of vision — you cannot without stooping forward see what is imme- 
diately at your feet. For picking trail you must keep your eyes 
well up, so as to see that portion of the road which is several yards 
in advance, and when you do this you are liable to stumble, not 
having within your field of vision the unevennesses closer at hand. 
These Eskimo goggles have the advantage over regular goggles or 
spectacles that glass, when it is kept near the eye, will hoarfrost 
from eye moisture and from the moisture of the face, especially 
if one perspires. This frosting is not a serious annoyance on a 
windy day, especially if one keeps the face sidewise to the wind, 
but on a calm, frosty day the glasses keep frosting continually 
and if one travels fast enough or works hard enough to perspire 
they cannot be worn at all. 

It has always been my plan to remain in camp when any one 
was snowblind, both because I realized the intense suffering of 
traveling under such conditions and because recovery is always 
quicker under proper care. But as we lost most of our amber 
glasses on the Karluk and never afterwards had enough to go 
around, we lost in five years several weeks of good traveling time 
through snowblindness. 

When we resumed travel on May 18th we saw seals in every 
lead we passed. It almost seemed as if they had been keeping out 
of sight to worry us, for now they were as numerous as I have 
ever seen them in any waters. 

A minor misfortune to reckon with was Ole's rather too cautious 
temperament. He was as optimistic as any one when there was 
real need, but now when seals were all about us and when I thought 
that with so many in one lead there were pretty sure to be some in 
the next, he would remind us how we had traveled for days with- 
out seeing seals and how w^e might get into another such district 
at any time. Whenever a seal appeared particularly close or in a 
position easy to approach, Ole used to say, "I think we'd better 
get that one and make sure of him." We lost many an hour in 
killing and picking up a seal, and presently found ourselves 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 203 

hauling a huge load almost as heavy as our load had been when the 
support party left us. Ole kept pointing out what a comfortable 
thing it was to know we had plenty, and volunteered to pull on the 
sled to help the team along. Surely if he who works has a right 
to eat, Ole had this right, for he was never lazy and seldom tired. 
Still, looking back now, we are all agreed that had it not been for 
Ole's frequent "We'd better get that one and make sure of him," 
we should have been able to make better progress. It is possible, 
doubtless, to have an excess of faith, but generally speaking he is 
the best ice traveler under our system who is the greatest optimist. 

Until the kerosene gave out cooking had been done in the tent, 
for our primus stove never gave any trouble. Afterwards for a 
few days we had cooked outside, burning grizzly bear or caribou hair 
in an improvised tin stove. When we began to kill seals we used 
for some days an Eskimo-style seal-oil lamp, improvised from a 
frying pan. But I was the only member of the party who was 
used to the management of this cooking apparatus, and the others 
had difficulty in keeping the wicks trimmed, with the result that 
a lot of smoke escaped into the tent and lampblack got all over 
the cooking pots, almost insulating them and making it difficult to 
bring the food to a boil. The indoors cooking being a nuisance, 
especially now that heat was not necessary in camp, Storkerson 
undertook to rig an outdoors cooking arrangement which proved 
satisfactory and was used on all our later trips. Intending to make 
a "blubber stove" eventually, we had been carrying our six gallons 
of kerosene in a galvanized iron tank, the sides and bottom of 
which were clinched as well as soldered so that it could not come 
to pieces upon application of heat. To have them suitable for 
blubber stoves we make these iron tanks cylindrical with a diam- 
eter a little larger than the largest of our aluminum cooking pots 
and a height of about fifteen inches. When the contents have 
been used the top is removed and a draft hole is cut near the bot- 
tom; then half-way up the stove we run two or three heavy wires 
across for the cooking pot to stand on. 

In burning seal oil or blubber, as in burning tallow, you must 
have a wick. Once I considered that asbestos might serve, since 
it could be used over and over again, but it would probably not be 
suitable, for the fibers would become so clogged with the incom- 
bustible residue of oil that its usefulness as a wick would be de- 
stroyed. Anyway, there is a simpler method. After our meals 
we save the clean-picked bones. When next the fire is to be built 
we use a little piece of rag for kindling, not necessarily more than 



204 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

an inch square, soaked in oil and put on the bottom of the stove. 
On top of it we make a little heap of the bones and on top of the 
heap we lay several strips of blubber, resembling so many strips 
of fat bacon. A match is touched to the rag and it burns like the 
wick of a candle, with the flame playing up between the bones and 
striking the blubber, which promptly begins to try out so that the 
oil drips down between the bones, forming a film on their outside. 
Upon sufficient heating this film flares up, and thereafter your 
fire burns with a furious heat so long as a strip of blubber is placed 
upon it. You now stand your cooking pot, filled with meat and 
water, upon the cross wires within the stove six or eight inches 
above the bottom. The flame first strikes the bottom of the pot 
and then spreads and comes up all around it, since the diameter of 
the stove is an inch or two larger than that of the pot. Application 
of heat to the bottom and sides of the pot at one time brings it 
to a boil as quickly as would the largest wood fire in a forest. 

The only disadvantage of this method of cooking is that the 
smoke of burning seal oil is thick and black and exceedingly sticky. 
It is, in fact, the best quality of lampblack, and clings to every- 
thing. We are always careful not to have the smoke strike the 
tent, but now and then a dog, where it is tied, happens to be in 
the path of the smoke, with the result that any white spots there 
may be on his coat soon become as dark as the rest of him. One 
of our almost white dogs was nearly as dark as the blackest by the 
time we got ashore in Banks Island. 

Although I had commonly done the cooking in the tent, whether 
with primus stove or seal oil lamp, either Storkerson or Ole was the 
cook after the blubber stove had been devised. Storkerson when 
once his fire was started used to stand aside and keep out of the 
smoke, but Ole was more solicitous and hovered about, so there is 
no exaggeration in saying that, although he is naturally a light 
Norwegian type of blond, he was in color within two weeks 
something between a mulatto and a full-blooded negro. 

From this point on we all enjoyed our journey as we had not 
done before. I never could see anything very attractive and 
certainly nothing particularly romantic in the portable-boarding- 
house method of arctic travel. If you have no hope of any food 
beyond that in your sled, your conscience worries you every time 
you eat a square meal. In fact, if you are of the historic, heroic 
type you never allow yourself a square meal, and make stern mem- 
oranda in your diary about the member of your party who takes a 
nibble between hours or who eats more than his share. Some ex- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 205 

plorers have gone so far as to shoot members of their party who have 
infringed on the rations, and this with the full approval of govern- 
ments at home and of lay readers of their narratives. I know a 
case where a lifelong friendship turned into enmity in a night 
because somebody got up in the dark and ate a quarter of a pound 
of chocolate. We never felt any resentment towards each other 
because of the quantities we used to eat, for it was always our 
understanding that when the chocolate and rice and other things 
were gone we should begin to live on seals, and it was merely a 
question of a few days sooner or later, anyway, when that time 
would come. It had come now, and he who had been free to eat 
chocolate when he listed was doubly welcome to boiled seal flipper 
or frozen liver or any other delicacy the sea afforded. 

Really we had for those ten days of voluntary rations been 
backsliders from our own doctrine, of which we have since been more 
faithful followers: '^Do not let worry over to-morrow's breakfast 
interfere with your appetite at dinner. The friendly Arctic will pro- 
vide." 

Lest memory seem to have spread a rosy haze over events that 
are five years past, I set down my diary entry of May 19, 1914. 
It shows the relaxation that came upon us when we were definitely 
through with the traditional method of arctic exploration, used as 
a sort of introduction to our trip and abandoned for the method of 
faith and reliance on nature which we have made our own. 

"Old times have come again and we are traveling in what I 
consider comfort. I don't like the pemmican method of explora- 
tion, though I concede as readily as any one its merits in its place. 
Where, as inland in the Antarctic, there is no game, it is the only 
method. But with it you are continually worrying whether the ra- 
tions will last to your destination, and there is nothing more to be 
hoped for than what you have with you at the start. This is the 
unsupplemented pemmican method as used by most European ex- 
plorers. But with a reasonable load of pemmican at the start 
(cereals and malted milk are better) , and with guns and skill, you 
can be sure in most latitudes of getting farther than your provisions 
reach — how much farther is always a matter of hope and anticipa- 
tion. It is thus a game as well as work. Science still has all her 
power over you, and so does the desire for approbation of the 
crowd or of the elect, and beyond that is the incentive of pure 
sport — no sordid desire to best a rival but merely eagerness to show 
what you and your method can do. And then there is the blessing 
of not being 'on rations.' For nearly two weeks we were on rations, 



206 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the first experience of the kind I have had when there was some- 
thing on the sled to eat. In the past I have kept men and dogs 
on full rations as long as there was one day's grub ahead, and I 
wish I had done it this time. I believe we should have been here 
and perhaps beyond this place before the spell of easterly wind 
which made the leads that are giving us so much trouble now, had 
we kept our dogs at full strength by keeping them on full rations, 
feeding them in five days what we did feed them in ten, for they 
would probably have gone from five to ten more miles per day. 
Now the dogs are so poor it will take a week of slow travel and 
good feeding to get them back to half their normal spirits. It 
would take about two weeks of approximate rest to get them in real 
form again. They will soon improve beyond what they have been, 
however. Even yesterday they pulled a bit better. 

"As for us, we are taking solid comfort, with no worries for the 
morrow. If it takes us a month to get ashore, we shall feed well 
the whole time as we have done to-day — a feast on boiled seal 
liver, tripe, flippers and blubber. All of us agreed we enjoyed it 
more than any breakfast we have had this winter. We are staying 
in camp to-day again to give the dogs a chance to rest and feed up 
a little. The weather also is not agreeable. There is the sort of 
haze that might give us snowblindness and which makes it very 
difficult to pick a trail. With our dogs weakened as they are now, 
it would be foolish to flounder ahead through rough going when 
there might be a few yards to one side or the other of us smooth 
ice which we could see if the sun were out. So we are resting to-day, 
hoping for sunshine and good luck to-morrow." 

May 20th did prove clear as we had hoped, but we had trouble 
with open water. In the afternoon a lead opened which was about a 
quarter of a mile wide at the narrowest place and ran at right an- 
gles to our course, so that we were sure to lose a good deal of ground 
by following it for a crossing. Furthermore, it seemed to be widen- 
ing and the crossing place might not have been discoverable. 

This was a good time to try our sledboat. Perhaps it seems sur- 
prising that we had not tried it before, for on many occasions there 
had been as much as a day's delay by open water. One reason 
why we suffered these delays was that on days of good luck we, 
and especially the dogs, worked so hard that coming upon open 
water was an excuse for resting, even more welcome than valid. 
Rest meant not our rest alone, but recuperation for the dogs, so that 
a day later when the lead had either frozen or closed they were able 
to pull faster and farther. Another reason was that the leads were 



ti^M^^W K "1 ^s^f^^" 






Rigging the Sledboat. 





9 




Launching the Sledboat. 

Crossing a Lead. 

Landing. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 207 

seldom actually open water. Usually they had been formed a few 
hours or even a day before and were covered by young ice which, 
although not strong enough to support a sled, was thick enough so 
that it would have had to be broken before a boat could be forced 
through. Forcing a canvas boat through young ice always chafes 
it along the water line, and although our raft cover was good qual- 
ity No. 2 canvas, we felt that a dozen crossings through young ice 
would probably wear a hole in it. But now the weather was so 
warm that even if leads were several hours old, the sun had pre- 
vented the formation of ice and they were as crossable as an ordi- 
nary river in summertime. 

Before we came to this particular lead we had already made up 
our minds that we would use the sledboat at the next one. As a 
matter of interest I made note of how long it took us to use the 
boat for the first time. We promptly unloaded the sled, spread 
the cover on the ground and placed the sled upon the middle of it. 
We took two sticks about six feet long, carried for the purpose, and 
lashed one crosswise of the sled near the front end and the other 
near the back end. Between the ends of these sticks we lashed one 
of our skis on each side. This made a frame which gave the boat 
a beam of six feet instead of only about twenty-five inches, which 
was the width of our fourteen-foot long sled. This frame con- 
structed, the tarpaulin was lashed up on the sides of the sled, and 
the sled had become a boat which would carry about a thousand 
pounds, enabling us to take our load across in two trips, carry- 
ing each time three of the dogs. It took exactly two hours from the 
time we stopped at the lead, a quarter of a mile wide, until we had 
the sled loaded and were on our way again on the other side. 

The advantage of this system of crossing a lead is manifest to 
any one, but especially to those who have read, for instance, of 
Nansen's boats for crossing open water. These were of fragile can- 
vas, and as he carried them on the sleds with the canvas stretched 
tightly over their frames, they were easily punctured when the 
sleds happened to upset or collide with broken ice. Nansen 
accordingly found that besides the disadvantage of the great care 
they required, they were so badly damaged and their covers so full 
of holes when open water was reached that it took several days of 
repairs to make them seaworthy. 

When we were through using our tarpaulin, which was about eigh- 
teen feet long and ten feet wide, we gave it a beating to remove any 
clinging ice. Sometimes at low temperatures a quarter of an inch 
or more of ice had formed on the canvas while we were crossing, 



208 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

but as all the interstices between the fibers are filled with lard the 
tarpaulin cannot possibly become water-soaked. This also gives a 
surface to which ice cannot adhere tenaciously, but can be removed 
by rolling the tarpaulin about, walking on it or beating it with a 
stick. The tarpaulin with its water-proofing of lard weighed about 
forty pounds, and I don't believe there was any time when this 
weight was increased as much as five pounds by the ice that still 
adhered to it when we rolled it into a bundle and put it in the sled. 
The bundle resembled a bolt of fiannel as you see it in a dry goods 
store and was loaded in the sled's bottom, conveniently and with no 
danger of injury during travel. 

Of course it is quite true that the sledboat is not as seaworthy 
as Nansen's kayaks. Still, Storkerson and Ole, who were both good 
sailors, once made me the serious proposition that we attempt to 
cross in it from Nelson Head to Cape Parry, a distance of sixty 
miles. I don't think this would have been a sensible thing to do, 
although it might have been accomplished. The great difficulty was 
that from the craft's shape it was not easy to paddle. 

A young seal was our food on May 20th. The younger the seal 
the more delectable the meat, and partly because the meat was 
good and partly because everything was going so well that we were 
in high spirits, we overdid the feast and on May 21st we did not 
travel. It may be a disgrace of a sort to confess to such gluttony, 
but at least it is no reflection on our method of provisioning to say 
that this was not the only occasion on that journey nor the only 
one of our journeys when one man or another was indisposed through 
overeating. Incidentally it shows how well we liked our diet. It 
does take some time to get used to a meat diet, and Ole was not as 
yet completely broken in. Storkerson and I that day were the pa- 
tients, but it wasn't many days before Ole was in equal plight. 

During this night we were awakened by the dogs barking. There 
might have been a bear in the vicinity, but none was visible. The 
dogs, too, were not watching the ice but were looking out towards 
an open lead. After we had gone back into the tent they began to 
bark again. This time their barking was explained, for we heard 
the noise which had surprised and worried them, and which now 
surprised and interested us though it was by no means a source of 
worry. It was the blowing of whales. We ran out and saw a 
school of beluga whales passing, northward-bound along the lead. 
During the next two or three weeks we saw thousands of them. 
They were usually traveling north or east according to the way 
the leads were running, but on rare occasions they were traveling 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 209 

in other directions. Sometimes the leads were open, but as the frost 
was still heavy at night the whales occasionally found themselves in 
leads covered with young ice. Then it was interesting to see the 
six or eight-inch ice bulge and break as they struck it with the 
hump of their backs. A moment after the noise of breaking ice 
would come the hiss of the spouting whale and a column of spray. 

Although some of the leads were narrow enough to compel the 
whales to pass within a few yards of us, we did not try to kill 
them because they sink instantly and it is no use unless you have 
a harpoon. On this our first sea journey we should doubtless have 
carried a harpoon had we expected to encounter whales. Now we 
have complete faith in the seal, and I do not think it likely I shall 
ever take along any apparatus for killing or securing animals other 
than bears and seals. Undoubtedly there are fish in the water, and 
for scientific reasons it would be of interest to carry some sort of 
gear for getting them, but I would never bother about fishing for 
food when seals are to be had. You must have the seals for fuel, 
anyway, and you might as well get from them your food also. 
The seal is indeed the best all-around animal of the North. Their 
skins furnish us with boots, with boats, and with containers for oil. 
The blubber is food for men and dogs, it supplies light in winter and 
heat for house and cooking, and the intestines provide waterproof 
clothing and translucent material for windows. 

The temporarily favorable westerly winds came to an end May 
22nd and another siege of easterly winds began. But for two days 
we had good luck. Undoubtedly the ice was all moving west, but 
the traveling floes pressed upon each other so closely that we always 
found a corner by which to cross to the next one east. 



CHAPTER XX 

MAROONED ON AN ISLAND OF ICE 

IT was without any premonition of what was about to happen that 
on May 24th, after we had gone two miles and a half, we stopped 
at a lead only about a quarter of a mile wide. To cross 
was impossible because of a strong easterly wind that covered even 
this narrow water with whitecaps, but such leads usually close and 
open as the floes crowd and jostle in their drift before the wind. 
No such thing was destined now to happen. Within the next few 
hours the lead had widened to five miles and by next day we had 
no idea how wide it was, for the ice to the east was no longer vis- 
ible and the waves were rolling in and beating against our floe as 
if there were nothing between us and Banks Island but an open 
ocean. Later the lead did narrow to about five miles again, but 
day after day the young ice refused to get hard enough to bear 
up the sleds, and nevertheless was so thick that it would have chafed 
a hole in the canvas of our sledboat long before we could have 
made the other side. 

We were now a sort of Robinson Crusoe party on a moving 
island of ice. I explored it the second day and found it to be four 
or five miles square, but on all sides separated from adjacent floes 
by uncrossable leads of ice and mush. Our island was substantial — 
from the height of the hummocks above sea level I judged that many 
parts of it were over fifty feet thick — so we had as safe a camp site 
as is possible on sea ice, but there were two things to concern us. 
One was that if the easterly wind continued we should fail to meet 
the Star at our rendezvous at the northwest corner of Banks Is- 
land; the other was the problem of food and fuel. If we were 
forced to spend the summer on the ice, we should have to spend 
the winter, too. Could we during the good hunting light store up 
enough meat and blubber to last during the winter darkness? And 
if enough was secured, we might not be able to keep the stores safe 
through the winter if in some night of darkness and blizzard our 
ice island should split in the middle of our camp, and each part start 
in a different direction if it did not tip on edge, spilling our depots 

210 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 211 

into the water. This was a spice of prospective danger which kept 
us from feeling the time monotonous. 

So soon as we felt certain our marooning would be protracted, 
we commenced killing seals. There were a great many about, but 
the mush ice in the leads made it difficult to secure them and after 
several days of effort we had only three or four safe on the ice be- 
side us. Then suddenly the food question was answered by the 
walking into camp of the first bear we had seen since leaving the 
neighborhood of Alaska. 

It was about noon, and Ole and I were asleep while Storkerson 
was standing watch. He was beginning to cook, preparatory to call- 
ing me for my watch, when the dogs started to bark at a diffident 
young bear that was hovering about and sniffing the camp from one 
or two hundred yards to leeward. By the time I had my eyes opened 
and my rifle in hand he had begun a circumspect approach. We 
waited till he was within twenty-five yards and then I shot him 
about three inches from the heart. His stomach contained nothing, 
so he could not have been faring very well the last day or so, but 
before that his hunt must have been successful for he was as fat as 
is desirable for food. 

Questions frequently are put to me as to whether caribou meat 
or musk-ox meat or bear meat or seal meat is good eating, and 
then I struggle against impatience, for underlying the query is a 
fundamental misunderstanding of human tastes and prejudice in 
food. A rule with no more exceptions than ordinary rules is that 
people like the sort of food to which they are accustomed. An 
American will tell you that he can eat white bread every day but 
that he gets tired of rice if he eats it more than once or twice a 
month, while a Chinaman may think that rice is an excellent food 
for every day but that wheat bread soon palls. An Englishman 
will tell you that beef is the best meat in the world, while in Ice- 
land or in Thibet you will learn that beef is all right now and then, 
but mutton is the only meat of which you never tire. If a man 
is brought up on the west coast of Norway or on Prince Edward 
Island, he thinks that herring and potatoes make the best of all 
staple diets, while an Iowa farmer likes potatoes well enough but 
would balk at the herring. 

Polar bear is a rare item in the diet of most Eskimo groups that 
I have known, and accordingly nearly all of them prefer some other 
form of meat. But the Eskimos of Prince Albert Sound who on 
their winter hunts in Banks Island live for several months each 
year nearly exclusively on polar-bear meat are very fond of it. 



212 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

As for the members of my traveling parties, we have never become 
really used to bear meat, although I have myself killed several 
dozen bears and been present at the killing of many dozen others. 
Bear has one fundamental defect that has nothing to do with the 
taste or toughness but lies in the stringy nature of the meat of any 
but the youngest. The fibers have a way of getting between the 
teeth and sticking there, making the gums sore, so that after a week 
or two of bear meat, chewing becomes painful. This applies to the 
cooked meat, not to the raw. Cooking increases the toughness and 
brings out the stringiness. I have never eaten any raw meat that 
was noticeably tough or stringy. Chewing half-frozen meat is like 
chewing hard ice-cream, while eating unfrozen raw meat cut in small 
pieces is like eating raw oysters. 

A second bear came into camp about ten hours after the first. 
His entry was a good deal more dramatic. As usual, our six dogs 
were tied near the tent, strung out at intervals of about six feet along 
the tie line that was fastened at both ends to chunks of ice. All 
of us were about a quarter of a mile away, Storkerson and Ole in 
the sled boat, paddling around about fifty yards from the solid ice, 
and I with my glasses standing on a hummock directing them where 
to find a dead seal that was partly hidden by some moving mUsh ice. 
My back was towards the camp but Storkerson, who was in the 
stern and faced it, noticed a bear about a hundred yards from the 
dogs, advancing towards them at a steady walk. I started for camp 
on a run, and just then the bear caught sight of the dogs and 
began to stalk them. They were all lying down but with their 
heads up looking in our direction, for the wind had brought them 
the smell of the killed seals. I foolishly shouted to them and this 
only fastened their attention more strongly on me. They were 
still oblivious of the bear, which had slunk to one side to be hidden 
by an ice hummock, and with legs bent and almost sliding on his 
belly was slowly moving towards them. The shielding hummock 
was about twenty yards from the dogs, and I knew that when he 
got that close he would make a dash from cover, yet without any 
suspicion that his attack was aimed at a dog, not at a seal. When 
a bear pounces on a seal he gets him between his claws first but 
bites him almost simultaneously. This action would be so in- 
stinctive that by the time he realized by smell or otherwise that he 
was not dealing with a seal the dog would be dead or maimed. 

The bear got to the hummock, and half stood up as he rounded 
it preparatory to making his dash. I was then about a hundred and 
twenty-five yards away and was badly out of breath, after a run 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 213 

through soft snow. Although I threw myself down and rested my 
elbow on the ice, I was so winded it was mainly by luck my bullet 
struck two inches back of the heart. It must have been chiefly 
the shock to his spine that made the animal crumple almost mag- 
ically, his four legs doubling under him and his head resting on the 
ice. I could see that he was alive, for his eyes followed my move- 
ments. He was about ten yards from the water, and it is the nature 
of bears when wounded to try to get into water. My first thought 
was to prevent this and I foolishly took a position between him and 
the open lead. 

It seems to me now that the bear used almost human judgment 
in what he did. Evidently he must have been recovering from the 
shock to his spine, though he was bleeding rapidly and would have 
died from loss of blood in five or ten minutes. But what happened 
was all comprised in less than two minutes. Just as I might have 
done in his place with only his resources, he kept his eyes fixed on 
me and made not the slightest motion for about a minute. In fall- 
ing he must have sunk slightly backward, for his hind feet were 
forward under him in just the feline position from which a cat or 
lion may leap. Suddenly and without any preparation he launched 
himself directly towards me. I had my rifle pointed and it must 
have been almost automatically that I pulled the trigger. Had not 
the bullet pierced the brain I am afraid it would have gone badly 
with me, for as it was he covered about three and a half of the five 
yards between us, and collapsed so near that blood spattered my 
boots. 

This incident increased a good deal my respect for the intelli- 
gence of polar bears, which has been growing with every encounter. 
Their unwary approach to a party of men and dogs must not be 
set down against them as lack of intelligence. They simply have 
not the data upon which to reason, for they never before have en- 
countered any dangerous animal upon the ice. We estimated the 
age of this bear at about four years, although I have no accurate 
knowledge upon which to calculate the age of bears. He was not 
fat but weighed seven or eight hundred pounds, the meat being 
about the equivalent of that of four seals. It seemed likely that 
bears would continue to come and evidently it was an economy of 
ammunition to kill them for meat, but their lack of fat made 
it necessary to continue seal hunting for the sake of the blubber. 

Forced wintering on the ice would mean that blubber would be 
more necessary than meat, for we would have to depend upon it 
for light and fuel as well as food. Seal blubber at any temperature, 



214 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

even at thirty or forty below zero, will lessen in weight day by day, 
the oil trickling out perceptibly. It is therefore necessary to pre- 
serve blubber in bags. This we do by skinning the seal through 
the mouth, or "casing" his skin, to use the language of the furrier. 
This means that the skinning is commenced at the lips. The hide is 
turned back and, as the skinning proceeds, pulled backwards over 
the head and then back over the neck and body as one might turn 
a sock inside out. When the skinning is done in this fashion, there 
are no openings in the bag except the natural ones. The flippers 
have none, for the bones are dismembered at what correspond to 
the wrist and ankle joints, leaving the flipper unskinned. The nat- 
ural openings are closed by tying them up like the mouth of a bag. 
This makes the pok which we use for a seal-oil container and which 
will hold the fat of about four seals. The same sort of bag may 
also be inflated by blowing and then forms a float with a buoyancy 
of two or three hundred pounds. Occasionally instead of using our 
canvas to convert the sled into a boat we fasten three or four of 
these inflated poks to the sides of the sled, making a sort of life 
raft. This is an Eskimo method, satisfactory in warm weather but 
not in winter, because the water which splashes over the sled turns 
into an ice coating very difficult to remove. 

While our seal hunting for blubber continued, the bears kept 
coming into camp. The third one arrived May 31st and in a pe- 
culiar way. It was three or four o'clock in the morning, the other 
men were asleep and I with my six-power glasses was standing on 
a hummock near the camp watching the ice of the lead, counting 
seals as they came up at distances beyond gunshot and also watching 
for whales, the northward passage of which was intermittent. The 
lead now was several miles wide and covered with young ice not 
strong enough to walk upon, except near the middle where some of 
it had telescoped, making it double thickness. As I could see 
later by careful study of this ice with my glasses, the bear must 
have been proceeding north along the middle of the lead. Possibly 
he had seen the camp or been attracted towards it by some noise. 
I do not remember having made any sound, but he may have heard 
the dogs — they had been tied up so long and were in such high 
spirits that they were developing an inclination to fight which, 
because of their chains, could only be translated into snarling and 
barking. 

The visitor's manner of coming was peculiar. The young ice was 
not strong enough to bear his weight but was too tough to allow 
comfortable swimming on the surface. He must have been coming 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 215 

up fjt'om one of his dives when I first saw him, for he was in a hole 
with his forelegs resting upon the ice on either side of him and with 
his shoulders out of water. He seemed to be craning his neck to 
look as far as possible, but apparently the ice would bear no more 
than the forward third of his body. After a rest of a minute or so 
and a good look around, he proceeded with a sort of overhand stroke, 
swimming along the surface and breaking the ice. In five or eight 
yards he became tired of this, made a dive, and in a few seconds 
carne up through the ice about twenty yards nearer. Here he 
rested as before, lifting himself and craning his neck as high as the 
strength of the ice allowed, then swam forward a few yards and 
dove again. , This manner of locomotion was so interesting that I 
called Storkerson and Ole. 

The bear made a landing about fifty yards from the camp and 
just at that moment got the scent of it. He stood and sniffed and 
then came towards us at a leisurely walk. The dogs had seen 
him and were furiously barking and tugging at their chains. All 
this outcry and commotion seemed to be of but mild interest, for 
the bear gave them only a casual glance now and then as he walked 
about five or ten yards from them straight for the stored seal meat. 
I killed him with one shot when he was in a convenient place for 
skinning. He was a fat bear, the largest we had secured so far, a 
good deal over a thousand pounds. 

The fourth bear came while we were skinning number three. He 
was a yearling and very timid. We had plenty of meat and I de- 
cided I would not shoot unless he came straight into camp. After 
studying us for five or ten minutes and sniffing the fresh smell 
of the bear we were skinning, he evidently concluded that a closer 
acquaintance would be undesirable and started off at a slow run 
which must have been intended to be a dignified retreat, but which 
showed that he was really scared. 

The fifth bear came on June 3rd, a visit more exciting than any 
of the others. I was away on a walk about our island, examining 
all sides to see if there were any chance to get off. Our dogs are 
tied commonly by making with picks a sort of toggle in the ice 
through which we pass the end of the tie line. Although ice is 
readily broken with a sharp blow, one of these toggles is unbe- 
lievably strong if subjected only to a steady strain. In the whaling 
at Point Barrow, for instance, half a dozen ice toggles, each no 
more than five inches in diameter, will stand the strain of hauling 
a sixty- or seventy-foot whale out of a lead on to the ice. But in 
this case thawing had weakened them, and when the dogs made a 



216 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

concerted rush towards the bear, putting their weights simultane- 
ously against the toggles, they broke. Tied together as the dogs 
were, the bear would have had them at a great disadvantage had 
he stopped to wait for them, but as soon as he saw them coming he 
fled, making for the water as a bear always will when he thinks 
himself in danger. About five yards from shore the young ice 
broke under him. He did not dive, but started trying to struggle 
up on the ice, breaking some more of it. The dogs rushed up but 
had the sense not to go in the water. 

Storkerson and Ole, out of the tent by this time, saw the great 
danger to the dogs, each one of which was of priceless value to us. 
They accordingly began to shoot, although instructions were that 
no bear was to be killed in the water, as the meat would have been 
difficult to retrieve. Only the head of the bear was showing much 
of the time, and partly because of this and partly because of ex- 
citement, it took a fusillade to kill him that used up more ammuni- 
tion than we could afford. It was justifiable, however, to do any- 
thing that increased the safety of our dogs. 

When this shooting began I was about half a mile from camp. 
As one shot after another rang out I grew more and more worried. 
My companions knew as well as I did that our lives and our suc- 
cess might depend upon the careful husbanding of ammunition. 
Yet there was Ole standing up and wastefully shooting from the 
shoulder like a cowboy firing at Indians in a movie. My momen- 
tary anger at this extravagance changed quickly to relief when I 
got home and saw what a narrow escape the dogs had had. 

Since leaving the shallow waters in the vicinity of the coast of 
Alaska we had been taking a sounding once every forty or fifty 
miles and invariably getting one result — 1,386 meters with no bot- 
tom. This was the full length of our line — about four- fifths of a 
mile — and it was a continual source of grief to me that the acci- 
dental breaking of the wire in earlier soundings had left us unable 
to reach bottom. It had been a theory with many geographers 
that the ocean north of Alaska was shallow, its bottom an extension 
of the continental shelf with a consequent average depth of under 
400 meters and a concomitant probability of numerous islands stud- 
ding this shallow sea. But instead of the ''continental shelf" we 
had below us "oceanic depths," and at least one ground for expect- 
ing to find new lands in this unknown sea was gone. 

At the lead which stopped us we had not taken a sounding im- 
mediately, for we had not traveled far from our last sounding, 
but on the second day we sounded and got bottom for the first time 



r^ 







n>'^' 




Sealing Waters. 




Fair Wind and Level Ice. 






«^«*<^*^ 



& 



.-Mm^M 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 217 

at 736 meters. Earlier in the trip it had been our expectation that 
if our line ever got bottom it would mean the approach to and dis- 
covery of an unknown land. But recently we had been traveling 
towards Banks Island, and this sounding merely confirmed the evi- 
dence of our sextant that we were only forty or fifty miles from 
the shore of a land that was known, although uninhabited and lit- 
tle explored. As the wind was steady and strong from the east and 
our ice drifting westward, it is probable that had we sounded upon 
our arrival the day before we should have had bottom at a much 
shallower depth. 

Daily sextant observations showed that our drift to westward 
away from Banks Island was continuous day after day although not 
uniform, and the same was indicated by soundings. May 27th we 
had 962 meters and on the 28th 1,142. On the 29th we were again 
in water too deep for reaching bottom with our line. 

Spring was now full upon us. Thaw water was trickling down 
the sunny side of the ice hummocks and bird life began to increase. 
Ivory gulls appeared on the 10th of May and by the 25th had be- 
come both numerous and friendly. They used to flutter about our 
camps and walk around within a dozen feet of us with little con- 
cern. I suppose the real reason for their friendliness was the meat, 
but still they frequently visited without even taking a nibble, 
though they were quite welcome to do so, for shortage of food was not 
going to be one of our serious problems. Barrow-gulls arrived May 
24th and so did the common tern. Whales kept traveling by in dozens 
or hundreds, and the dogs had become so used to their blowing that 
they no longer barked or gave a sign of attention. Small marine 
life was abundant in the water. The gulls evidently lived sump- 
tuously on it, and the seals swam about on the surface feeding 
lazily. In their stomachs we found both shrimps and small "worms" 
half an inch long. These shrimps and worms were so abundant in 
the surface layers of the water that had we been in any such 
straits as the Greely party when they attempted to live on shrimps, 
we could have done so with little trouble. 

By June we had become almost reconciled to our encampment 
on the ice. We had begun to think that we should have to spend 
our entire summer there and, of course, where you spend the summer 
it is advisable to spend the winter, for your gathered store of food 
and fuel will take you safely through the months of darkness if 
you camp by it. If you begin traveling in the autumn you have 
to leave most of your supplies behind and may have difiiculty in 
securing more later for the lack of hunting light. I do not think 



218 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

any one takes an unreasonable degree of risk who travels in the 
Arctic with only game for food, whether it be on land or ice, during 
the periods of ample light. But when the daylight begins to fail 
towards fall, the traveler is under a severe handicap. Realizing this, 
we had begun to talk about how we would spend the winter on this 
solid floe that in two weeks had begun to have for us something 
of the friendliness and security of home, and to speculate about 
which way we might drift and how far from land we should be by 
the time daylight came back in the spring and we could resume 
travel. 

But on June 5th a chance to leave came at last. The lead be- 
fore had been narrow enough for crossing had there been open 
water, but the young ice had always been of that unfortunate sort 
which obstructed the boat without being strong enough to support 
the sled. But this morning adhering to our ice island were only 
about fift}^ yards of young ice and beyond that a quarter of a mile 
of open water, and then some strong-looking young ice adhering 
to the other shore. I had the night watch, as usual, and awoke the 
men at about one in the morning, telling them that I had decided 
to try a crossing. It took about half an hour to break a road 
through the fifty yards of young ice to the water and half an hour 
after that our first load had been ferried across. A head wind 
meantime had been increasing and the lead was rapidly widening. 
By throwing away most or all of our meat and blubber we could 
have ferried across in two loads with smooth water, but as white 
caps soon began to run we did not dare to load the sledboat heavily. 
It seemed to me possible also that the ice on which we were landing 
was itself only a little island and that we might not be able to 
travel on it far. This induced us to ferry a fourth load, consisting 
entirely of meat and blubber. Although we took with us a thousand 
pounds, we abandoned more than a ton of food on our island. 

The last crossing was made with some difficulty, for the lead 
was now nearly a mile wide, as I thought, and a mile and a half as 
Storkerson and Ole estimated it. The wind had risen to almost a 
gale and the waves struck the front end of our blunt boat with such 
force that for ten or fifteen minutes I was doubtful if we were mak- 
ing any headway. The dogs, always bad sailors in a rough sea and 
always getting out on the leeward edge of the boat, had been taken 
across in the earlier trips. Had the wind been even a little stronger, 
our separation would have been pleasant neither for them, tied on 
the leeward side, nor for us, marooned on the windward side of ice 
floes drifting rapidly apart. We got over after a hard paddle, and 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



219 



it fortunately proved that, although our landing beyond the lead 
had been made on what had been a small floe, this was now 
connected by some passable young ice to the next ice island beyond, 
and we were able to proceed by treacherous bridges of young ice 
from floe to floe eastward for ten miles. 

Undoubtedly the ice under us was still moving west, but as we 
had been carried west only ninety miles during eleven days of en- 
campment, we were encouraged in feeling that now we were traveling 
east at least as fast as we were drifting west, and that should there 
be a change of wind the drift would probably set in the other direc- 
tion, carrying us towards Banks Island at a speed to add substan- 
tially to our own traveling. 



CHAPTER XXI 

SUMMER TRAVEL ON DRIFTING ICE FLOES, 1914 

NOW we had a good deal of cloudy weather and found the "wa- 
ter sky" exceedingly useful. When uniformly clouded over 
the sky reflects everything beneath it in the manner of a mir- 
ror. If there is below a white patch of ice, then the sky over it looks 
white, while a black strip of water is represented by a black line in 
the sky. It is hard on the eyes to travel in cloudy weather and hard 
on the dogs for picking trail, yet the water sky absent in clear 
weather more than makes up for these disadvantages. Leads were 
all about us but the comers of various cakes were touching, and by 
keeping our eyes on the cloud map above we were able to travel 
sometimes a day at a time without even seeing water. Fortunately 
for us, the leads ran in such a direction and the cakes met in such 
a way that the course which enabled us to avoid the leads was north- 
east, which was also the course we most desired to travel. 

But when the sun came out, astronomical observations showed 
that while we were traveling northeast at an average estimated 
rate of about ten miles per day, we were being carried south so 
rapidly that our actual course was southeast. With Norway Is- 
land the appointed rendezvous, it had been for some time my inten- 
tion, if we could, to make the landing at Cape Alfred, the most 
northwesterly corner of Banks Island, so that our ice exploration 
might be as comprehensive as possible. We would then travel south 
along the coast to Norway Island, where we would build a beacon on 
the most conspicuous hill for the information of the Star, and go 
on, since Norway Island is shown on the chart as only six or eight 
miles in diameter, and hunting would probably not be good enough 
to justify a stay. Sealing and consequently bear hunting might 
be good but we would prefer the mainland to the east on account of 
caribou, as we wanted their skins for bedding and clothing the com- 
ing winter. 

During the following three weeks in the slow struggle towards 
shore we were voluntarily delayed by the frequent soundings. For 
some days the water was too deep for our length of wire but on 

220 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 221 

June 11th we again reached bottom, this time at 668 meters. From 
that point we sounded every few miles, took very careful account 
of marches between soundings, and located ourselves by astro- 
nomical observations on every clear day. 

During this week the struggle was a bit discouraging. Some 
days travel was impossible because of bad weather and excessive ice 
motion, and on those days we lost ground, for the ice was always 
drifting south and sometimes west as well. When we did travel we 
had trouble not only with open water but with the softness of the 
snow. Drifts which would have been hard under foot, scarcely 
recording impressions of the feet of men and dogs in a temperature 
below freezing, were now heaps of snow resembling granulated 
sugar, through which it was no easier to walk than through a bin 
of wheat. The sled sank into this snow so that we had to drag it 
like a snow plow, and the dogs floundered for lack of solid footing. 
Sometimes the men had to force the sled forward ten or twenty 
yards at a time with no help from the dogs, and often this was not 
possible until after we had tramped back and forward several times 
making a sort of road for it. 

On previous expeditions I had had to deal with snow of this 
sort and been led by it to devise an improvement to the ordinary 
Alaska sled. Alaska sleds as built in Nome and elsewhere are 
twelve or fourteen feet long and twenty-one to twenty-eight inches 
wide. As their pictures show, there are stanchions upward from 
the runners so that the load is borne on a platform from six to 
nine inches high. This platform is supported by cross benches 
underneath between the stanchions, and as the sled sinks these cross 
benches catch the snow and push it forward. When this happens 
it is not possible to move the sled without an expenditure of force 
many times greater than would be necessary if the cross benches did 
not touch the snow. For travel through soft snow no sled is really 
suitable except the Indian toboggan, but it is not practical in rough 
ice nor upon hard roads. There occurred to me a plan for combin- 
ing the advantages of both types of sled by nailing boards under- 
neath the cross benches of the Nome type so that when the runners 
sank deep enough to bring the body-part into contact with the 
snow, the under-surface should have the character of a toboggan 
and ride smoothly over the snow exactly as a toboggan does. 

Like most innovations, this one had met with no favor among 
the experienced men of my expedition. In Nome I had had several 
sleds made with toboggan bottoms, but in the southern section of 
the expedition and also on the Karluk these bottoms had in my 



222 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

absence been removed, on the theory that they were an additional 
and useless weight. In outfitting for my ice journey I had had the 
toboggan bottom replaced on one sled, but this happened to be the 
one Wilkins had with him when he got accidentally separated from 
us. The one we now had was of the ordinary, unimproved Nome 
type. Not unnaturally my diary entries of those days included more 
or less wailing over the fact that it did not have a toboggan bottom. 
My companions were so thoroughly persuaded by our experiences 
that this was the last ice trip of the expedition where any one 
wanted to use a sled without a toboggan bottom. 

By the 15th of June the depth of water had decreased to 350 
meters and land birds began to appear, snow buntings and jaeger 
gulls and a few days later king eiders and old squaw ducks. 

On June 22nd the soundings had come down to about 50 meters. 
From a low hummock at this sounding place I looked across about 
half a mile of level ice to a very high pressure-ridge, and between 
the crags saw beyond something dark and uniform in outline which 
I felt sure was land free from snow. 

Storkerson and Ole were standing beside the dog team, and I 
called to them to come to the top of the hummock. But they had 
learned skepticism through frequently taking for land either hum- 
mocks of dirty ice or distant banks of thick, billowy fog. Ole ad- * 
mitted that he saw ''something black that might be land," but ' 
Storkerson, perhaps to guard himself from disappointment, main- 
tained that nothing could be seen which we had not frequently seen 
before and found to mean nothing. To settle it we hurried the half 
mile to the high ridge between whose crags the dark outline had 
been revealed, but one of our sudden arctic fogs had intervened 
to the eastward and from the ice pinnacle everything in that direc- 
tion now looked white. 

Just beyond this ridge was a lead of open water which we crossed 
by an ice cake lying transversely across. We were tired and made 
camp, but before going to sleep I took a sounding showing 39 
meters and land birds began to appear, snow buntings and jaeger 

Next morning, June 23rd, I was up early and able to write in 
my diary: "The land is no longer problematic. It is in plain sight 
in the form of three hills, the more northerly two of which are 
probably connected, as the southernmost may be also. The north 
end bears North 17° West and the south hill North 5° East. The 
distance to the land is not less than ten miles and may be a good 
deal more." 

To those who have given little thought to the peculiarities of the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 223 

magnetic compass, it may seem strange that land lying to the east 
should by compass be seventeen degrees west of north. This is 
because the magnetic needle does not point to the North Pole, which 
is north of us wherever we are unless we are standing on the Pole 
itself, but approximates towards the magnetic pole, which is at some 
not yet exactly located spot in the vicinity of the peninsula of 
Boothia Felix in northeastern Canada. The saying that the needle 
points to the magnetic pole is in few places on the earth an exact 
truth. Its direction from Banks Island, when we speak "true" 
and not "by compass," is southeasterly. 

For several days before we came in actual sight of what proved 
to be Norway Island, our rendezvous, we had seen in the sky to 
the eastward a peculiar pink glow. We thought it might be a re- 
flection of dead grass covering the hills of Banks Island, but it 
had another cause. When we commenced traveling over the land- 
fast ice, some twenty miles offshore, we noticed in the snowbanks 
that peculiar tinge of pink — it may sometimes almost verge on red 
— due to the microscopic plant known as "pink snow." It was 
this that was reflected pink in the sky. The layman finds it curi- 
ous that these plants appear to flourish best on the north side of 
snowdrifts, where the sun is least warm at any time and where 
freezing may take place while another slope of the same drift is 
thawing. In some mountain ranges these plants are said to be so 
numerous in the snow that it has a pinkish tinge even when held 
in the hand, but where we have traveled the pink can be seen only 
at a distance of several yards and best at a distance of thirty or 
forty yards, for on close approach the snow looks only white or a 
little dingy. 

We were somewhat surprised to find the ice aground here in 
thirty-nine meters, or about 120 feet. The actual freezing of sea 
water does not produce ice in these or probably any latitudes of 
more than six or seven feet in thickness, but the telescoping of it 
under pressure may, as we have described elsewhere, increase this 
thickness indefinitely. Few districts are more frequently under 
violent stress than the west coast of Banks Island, where some of 
the pressure-ridges project more than sixty feet above the water, 
their base resting solidly on the bottom 120 feet below. It is a 
peculiarity of the strong westerly winds on the north coast of 
Alaska and the west coast of Banks Island that they bring with 
them a high "storm tide," raising the level of the water six or 
eight feet above ordinary high tide. The coastal ridges of ice are 
thus heaped up, especially in the zone lying between five and twenty 



224 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

miles from the Banks Island coast. When the thaw winds come in 
the spring and summer, the warmest are from the east and south- 
east. The stronger the east winds the lower the ''tide," so that the 
ridges which have been heaped up with a high tide are solidly 
aground and immovable to any effort of the east wind. For this 
reason a typical summer condition on the west coast of Banks 
Island is that the moving pack to seaward is driven far out of 
sight to the west, and a lane of open water along the land is pro- 
duced by the warm rivers from the interior, while there remains a 
belt extending from half a mile to fifteen miles offshore where the 
ice still lies unbroken and immovable. Occasionally a west wind 
brings a high tide and then drops suddenly enough to allow an east 
wind to start before the tide has fallen. Then the entire mass of 
shore ice may go abroad in two or three hours. 

Our first sight of land had been from a distance of nearly twenty 
miles. The going from this point was exceedingly bad. We waded 
sometimes through water nearly up to our waists, while the dogs 
had to swim and the sled floated behind like a log of wood towed 
across a river. A far worse condition was when the miniature lakes 
on top of the ice were filled not with water only but with slush 
snow. Though your feet went straight to the bottom, real wading 
was not possible and either walking or swimming was quite impos- 
sible to the dogs. In places like this you had to force your way 
back and forth through the slush several times, making a sort of 
ditch or canal preliminary to taking hold of the leading dog and 
dragging the team after you while the other two men pushed the 
sled from behind. The hardest kind of work gave us only six 
miles per day. 

Our first sleep on the land floe had a comfort and security 
about it that we had not known for over ninety days. No drift 
could now take away from us in the night whatever distance we had 
won during the day. No crack would open under us, no cake would 
tip on edge to spill us into the water. Later years brought us 
thorough familiarity and confidence in the ocean ice, but the relief 
and at-home-ness of the land ice then were beyond description. 
Besides the uncertainty of reaching Norway Island in order to meet 
the Star in the fall, we had also the unacknowledged doubt of 
whether we could reach land at all. No matter how sound the 
reasons for your confidence in a theory, it seems to be part of a 
somewhat irrational human nature that you never feel quite sure 
of being able to do anything unless you know that some one has 
done it before. The universal skepticism on the Alaska coast 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 225 

among whites and Eskimos alike of the possibility of making the 
five- or six-hundred-mile journey over frozen ocean to northwest 
Banks Island had somehow soaked into our bones. So far we had 
never slept without feeling, although there was no evidence to our 
senses, that our beds were drifting. Sometimes it was a drift favor- 
able to us and sometimes against, but there was always the gam- 
bler's tenseness about these erratic camping places that were always 
carrying us either toward or away from our goal. The passive se- 
curity of the land-fast ice was a feather bed and down pillow which 
brought the first real relaxed sleep for three months. 



CHAPTER XXII 

LAND AFTER NINETY-THREE DAYS ON DRIFTING ICE 

W] landed on June 25th at 8: 10 in the evening, ninety-six days 
out from the Alaska coast. Measured by a string laid on 
the surface of a globe the journey is a little over five hun- 
dred miles, but a checking up of astronomical observations show? 
that, counting the adverse drift, we had traveled about seven hun- 
dred miles. But whether the trip be called five hundred miles or 
seven hundred, neither figure measures its difficulty. If the same 
journey were to be undertaken by a party equipped like ours each 
year for ten years and were to be started a month or six weeks earlier 
than we started, I believe it could be done, in at least nine seasons 
out of the ten and perhaps in every one of the ten seasons, on the 
average in about half the time that it took us. For our difficulties 
were not the mileage but the warmth of the weather, with conse- 
quent mobility of the ice and treacherous ice bridges that after 
each gale formed all too slowly between the floes. If we were to 
make the journey again we should also start with a lighter load 
from Alaska, having now no longer a mere theory, but a theory veri- 
fied by trial, to give us complete confidence in the food and fuel 
supplied by the arctic high seas. 

On the last day we had camped on the sea ice a mile and three- 
quarters from shore. We might have been impatient to reach the 
land that lay green and close to us in the sun, but from the point of 
view of the arctic traveler the fundamental difference is not between 
sea and land, but between the moving ice on one hand and the land- 
fast ice and land on the other. When we had left the moving pack 
for the grounded shore floe, we had already counted ourselves ashore. 
Still there was an interest all its own in stepping on the real 
land. There was plant life, with a kind of academic interest to 
the eyes, and there was the more practical importance of the animals 
and birds. Whatever else these animals and birds might be, they 
were potential food for us or food for the animals on which we feed. 
For, according to the law of this grewsome world, the worm implies 
the song-bird that feeds upon it, and the song-bird implies the owl 

226 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 227 

that robs the little bird's nest and eats its young; the lemming im- 
plies the fox, and the footprint of a caribou or an old antler lying 
bleaching upon the hillside tells not only of the magnificent stag 
and gamboling fawn, but of the packs of wolves that follow the 
stag for days across the rolling hills and eventually eat him alive 
when he falls from exhaustion. (Only in the books of the nature 
faker is the wolf fleet enough to overtake the caribou after a short 
rush, and his fangs long and keen enough to cut the jugular vein. 
If animals have a sense of humor it is a pity they cannot read our 
popular nature stories or come to see an occasional ''Great North 
Woods" or "God's Country" movie.) 

From the first sight of land our concern had been to get ashore, 
so that we had left unkilled several seals along the way. Accord- 
ingly, we landed with no food for the dogs and only about half a 
meal for ourselves. While we were still a mile from shore with the 
southward slope of Norway Island conveniently spread out ahead, 
my glasses revealed one wolf, one fox, eight hares, some king eiders, 
Pacific eiders, old squaw ducks, and three dark geese, one of which 
on closer approach proved to be a Hutchins. After landing we saw 
some willow ptarmigan, plovers, Lapland longspurs, snow buntings, 
and two or three kinds of sandpipers. We found also the exgorgita- 
tions of owls and saw a few bees and blue-bottle flies. There were 
no mosquitoes, our later intimate acquaintances on the mainland. 

Caribou tracks were on the beach, and while our side of the 
island certainly contained no caribou as reviewed from seaward, 
there might be some on the other slope. So I left the men to make 
our first camp on shore and to gather pieces of driftwood for the 
first campfire, and went to the top of the island to get a view of 
the far side. The island proved to be only about half as large as 
the Admiralty chart has it, only half as far from the next land 
east, and with the long axis at about right angles to what it should 
be by the chart. I ascended the most westerly of the hills, so that 
turning to the east I had to look first over three miles of the island 
and beyond that over three miles of ice to examine what I then 
thought was the mainland of Banks Island. And it should have 
been the mainland by the chart, but it proved to be an island about 
twice the size of Norway Island and much more fertile. That is- 
land we later named after Captain Peter Bernard of the Sachs. 

In hunting on the grassy plains of the Arctic, a good pair of 
glasses and a knowledge of their use are about as important as the 
quality of your rifle and the pair of legs that carry you. I have 
found it as difficult to teach a new man the proper use of field 



228 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

glasses as to teach the use of the rifle or the understanding of any 
of the principles of hunting in the open country. The green man 
stands erect with his heels together, lifts the glasses jauntily to his 
eyes and spins slowly around on one heel, taking from half a min.- 
ute to a minute to make a complete survey of the horizon. Then 
he announces that there is no game in sight. The experienced 
hunter will take some pains to find the best place to sit down, will 
bring out from somewhere a piece of flannel that is clean no mat- 
ter how dirty he himself and every other item of his outfit may be, 
and wipe every exposed lens till he is sure there isn't a speck or 
smudge anywhere. If the landscape is well within the power of his 
glasses he will probably rest his elbows on his knees, but if the dis- 
tance is great or the wind blowing, he will lie down flat with elbows 
on the ground, or will build up out of stones or any available ma- 
terial a rest for the glasses that cannot be shaken by the wind. 
If the wind is blowing hard he may even place a fifteen- or twenty- 
pound stone on top to keep them steady. There is never any pivot- 
ing or swinging motion as he brings them to bear upon successive 
fields of view. If the angle of vision is six degrees, as it may be 
with six-power glasses, or three degrees with twelve-power, he ex- 
amines thoroughly the field disclosed by their first position and 
then moves them a less number of degrees than they cover, so that 
the second field of view shall slightly overlap the first. In calm 
weather and with an ordinary landscape it takes about fifteen 
minutes for one good look around from a hilltop, and under special 
conditions it may take a good deal more. If, for instance, some- 
where near the limit of the power of the glasses is seen a patch that 
may be a caribou but which may also be a stone or a wolf, it may 
take an hour of study to make sure. 

Six little white specks on a hillside were apparent now on what 
I thought was the mainland, a mile or two from the beach. The 
sky was clear and there was that quivering, wavy motion in the 
atmosphere which is due to the sun shining on areas of different na- 
ture, causing air currents to rise that differ in temperature and 
humidity. Through such an atmosphere all things have blurred out- 
lines even if their shapes are not otherwise distorted, and the shape 
may easily appear fantastic. Small stones, round or flat, may look 
like tall pillars and even appear to move. If stones or the like 
appear to move they will all seem to be moving in the same direc- 
tion. This may be the case with caribou, although they spldom 
retain their relative positions as immovable bodies seen through 
a mirage would do. My six specks looked round and had blurred 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 229 

outlines, so there was no telling whether they were stones or caribou 
until one's mind was made up by study. They might have been 
white geese, for in looking across a range of hills and then over 
some invisible ice beyond to a second land, there is no easy way 
of estimating distance. It took about half an hour of watching 
before one of the bodies moved with reference to the other five. 
These were then not stones, since one of them had moved, and not 
geese, because six geese at this time of day would not have retained 
their positions relative to each other unchanged for half an hour. 
By a process of elimination, they were caribou, which had all been 
lying down, until just now when one got up and moved a few steps. 

The men in the camp below had supper cooked and could be 
seen waiting for me; but as there were no caribou on the island 
and we had only half a meal of food, and as a wolf might come 
along and chase away my band of caribou or fog arise to shut them 
from view, I decided to go after them at once. Following the 
sky line of the island to make sure that the men saw which way I 
was going, I started eastward at a brisk walk. I knew they would 
infer that there was no use waiting supper, I also expected they 
would infer that they were free to eat all the meat there was. To 
have saved a third of it might have been courteous and even kind, 
but they ate it all on the assumption that I would secure my own 
supper before I came b^ck, which was a vote of confidence I valued 
far beyond kindness or courtesy. 

When I started towards the caribou I thought I was going after 
my supper, but it turned out to be breakfast. For when after three 
hours of walking I came within half a mile of them, I found them 
grazing near the middle of a huge saucer-shaped bowl of grass-land 
where it was impossible to approach from any side without being 
seen. In an uninhabited island caribou might popularly be expected 
not to be afraid of a man. As I understand their psychology, neither 
would they if they could know he was a man. But how are they to 
know it when with their poor eyesight they can see an object and 
still not be able to tell whether it is a wolf or a caribou? When 
anything comes unexpectedly into sight they make their decision 
on the side of discretion, assume what they see is a wolf and 
promptly flee, although as often as not what they flee from is an- 
other caribou or some other, to them, entirely harmless animal such 
as a fox or polar bear. 

In view of the topography and of the nature of caribou, there 
was nothing for me to do except to wait. Of course I might have 
adopted the hunting tactics of the Slavey and Dog-rib Indians of 



230 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the mainland, who rush up to a band of caribou at top speed, hop- 
ing to get within shooting range before they begin to run, and hoping 
also that because of their peculiar antics the caribou will be con- 
vinced at once that they are not wolves, and will circle to get a 
better look or to get to leeward to prove it by the sense of smell. 
I have often seen this method used by Indians and never with 
great success. They may get one or two out of a band or they 
may get none, and their stories of occasionally killing whole bands 
I have never verified, nor has any one on whom I thoroughly rely. 
But by more common-sense methods, one can usually get every 
animal of a band of six or eight. In a country where game is 
scarce, as it is in nearly every region where I have hunted, it is 
necessary to kill a majority of the animals seen, and I long ago 
discarded the haphazard methods of the Indian, which too often 
leave you hungry and empty-handed after several hours to begin the 
hunt all over again. 

The caribou grazed in the center of their bowl from half-past 
eleven that night until about three in the morning. They then lay 
down for an hour, and about four o'clock commenced grazing 
slowly in a direction directly away from me. What I had to do 
was to move a little farther off, till at something over half a mile 
I was sure they could not see me. Then I circled to be directly in 
front of them and lay for about an hour motionless till they were 
within two or three hundred yards, when I shot all six in eight shots. 

The work of skinning and dismembering took some time and it 
was an eight-mile walk home, so that by the time I arrived at camp 
the men had had a good night's sleep and were up and ready to cook 
breakfast. Only they had nothing to cook. They knew it was one 
of my most firmly adhered-to rules that on any long trip where am- 
munition has to be husbanded, no animal smaller than a wolf shall 
be killed. They had been discussing how good the geese on the 
hillside would taste, and wondering whether I might not be willing 
to make an exception in this case and allow the landing to be cele- 
brated with a goose or two. They had even come to a decision, 
and one of our proudest traditions might easily have been shat- 
tered by the expenditure of a bullet for five pounds of meat when 
it should have brought one hundred. But the tradition was saved 
by my arrival with six caribou tongues for a preliminary break- 
fast, and the announcement that by moving seven miles we could 
camp in the vicinity of the deer-kill with driftwood enough to cook 
two or three successive meals of boiled caribou heads. 

When we got ashore Storkerson and I had a real feast of boiled 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 231 

heads. But not poor Ole, who sat eating steaks of caribou ten- 
derloin and wishing he had salt or onions to make it less insipid. It 
must be said for Ole, however, that he learned more quickly than 
most tenderfeet, for we had not been in Banks Island more than a 
week when he quit frying steaks for himself and began to join 
us in the eating of boiled heads and briskets and ribs. 

The tastes of the northern hunters who live on meat alone are 
nearly uniform whether they be Indians, Eskimos, or white men 
resident with either people, though they differ strikingly from the 
tastes in meat acquired in connection with modern European cook- 
ing. These northerners eat their meat by taste, as our ancestors 
must have done when originated the saying, "The nearer the bone 
the sweeter the meat." Nowadays we do not judge meat with our 
palates according to its flavor but with our teeth according to its 
"tenderness." To aid our teeth in the judgment of meat we call 
on our eyes to differentiate between dark and light meats. One 
of the main difficulties in trying to introduce a new meat into the 
dietary of a "civihzed" people is the problem of matching it in color 
with some meat already in favor. 

I have known white hunters who carried salt with them to 
stick for a surprisingly long time to European ideas of cooking. 
But if one has no salt the organs of taste recover rapidly from 
even scores of years of abuse with seasonings and sauces. When 
the sense of taste has regained a moderate delicacy, white men fall 
naturally into agreement with the Eskimos and northern Indians 
in classifying the parts of caribou about in the following descend- 
ing order of excellence: 

The head is best, and except the marrow the most delicious fat 
is back of the eyes. These flavors are the strongest and most pleas- 
ing of the whole caribou. Then comes the tongue. Next are brisket, 
ribs and vertebrae, but in all of these we usually remove for dog 
feed some of the outer meat, reserving for ourselves the "sweet 
meat near the bone." Next come hearts, kidneys, and the meat 
near the bone on the neck. Shoulders are next. These are more 
often eaten by the Indians than the Eskimos, as are also the hearts, 
apparently because the Indians use roasting now and then as a 
method of cooking, and these parts seem better roasted. 

Here it may be remarked that frying is a method of cooking 
unknown to the natives of northern North America and they take 
very badly to it, except the frying of bacon, ham and imported 
meats generally. I have known both Indians and Eskimos pro- 
ficient enough in white men's cooking to have jobs as cooks in 



232 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

trading posts or on ships, but even they go back to exclusive boiling 
and roasting of native meats and fish if they start housekeeping for 
themselves. 

It is seldom among the Alaska and Mackenzie River Eskimos 
that caribou hams are eaten when there is enough of other meat. 
The hams, some of the entrails, the lungs and liver, the outside meat 
from the neck and brisket, and the tenderloin are the food of the 
dogs. There are partial exceptions to this rule, for several rea- 
sons. When fuel is scarce, as it occasionally is in Coronation 
Gulf, boned hams are cooked, as they require less fuel per pound, 
being cut in small pieces for boiling. The summer of 1916, for 
instance, we were compelled to eat ham meat for lack of fuel. 
Also when you are drying meat it is often convenient to dry hams, 
which are more easily sliced thin; as dry meat, they will be eaten 
later. Still, the Slaveys and other Indians usually prefer drying 
boned rib meat, and these are the favorite food of the Hudson's Bay 
Company's men and other northern fur traders, who buy them from 
the Indians. 

Such are, roughly, the tastes and preferences in lean or mod- 
erately fat meat that are common among the native northern meat- 
eaters and that are acquired by whites soon after they quit using 
salt and other seasoning.* 

The tastes of meat-eaters as to the various fats of caribou and 
similar animals are perhaps more interesting than other sections of 
the same subject, for the reason that people of European culture 
have during the last three centuries allowed sugar to usurp almost 
wholly the field of gustatory delights where fats were once supreme, 
while yet the phrase ''to live on the fat of the land" had a keen 
appeal to the senses. 

I judge from the experience of myself and others that no one 
while living on the typical modern diet, largely made up of pro- 
tein, sugar and starch, is capable of delighting in the fine shades 
of flavor between different kinds of fat. But this power comes very 
soon irrespective of climate to whoever lives on unseasoned animal 
foods exclusively. Then, whatever the race or bringing-up, there 
seems little variety in tastes as to fats. I imagine this would be so 
were the animals eaten cattle or sheep or fowl. I know with caribou 
that negroes. South Sea Islanders, Indians, Eskimos and Europeans 

* For a more detailed discussion of Eskimo tastes in food, see the section 
on "Food" in "Anthropological Papers of the Stefansson-Anderson Expedi- 
tion," New York, 1914. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 233 

of varied nationality generally agree that in point of palatability 
the fats of the caribou should be ranged as follows: 

The least agreeable is the back fat. When tried out and made 
into tallow, it is harder than that from any other part of the animal. 
Next are the intestinal fat and the fat found in the interstices of the 
meat, as on the ribs, etc. The fat near the bone on the brisket is 
considered somewhat better than the last two varieties. Next would 
come the kidney fat. Best of all are the fat behind the eyes and 
the little lump of fat on the hind leg near the patella. 

If these fats are tried out the ones considered preferable in 
taste generally make the softest tallow. Kidney fat, for instance, 
is softer than intestinal fat, and intestinal fat is softer than back 
fat. However, the fat from behind the eyes and from the leg are 
no softer than the kidney fat, although considered of a better flavor. 
This discussion refers to fats eaten after being brought to almost or 
quite the boiling temperature of water; in other words, underdi^one 
boiled fat. 

Marrows are usually eaten raw by the northern Indians and 
almost always by the Eskimos and by experienced white hunters, 
although the femur and humerus are sometimes either roasted or 
boiled. In palatability the marrows are simple to classify, for the 
preferred ones are nearest the hoof, the ones farther away the least 
agreeable. While delicious, the marrow of the small bones near the 
hoof is seldom eaten because it is bothersome to get at and there 
is so little of it. In the long bones the marrow is not only pref- 
erable nearer the hoof when you take it bone by bone, but there 
is a distinct difference between the upper and lower end of each 
bone, the marrow of the lower end being better. 

More exactly than in the case of the fats, the various marrows 
agree in hardness and palatability; that is, the softer the marrow 
the more palatable. This means also that the softest marrows are 
nearest the hoof and get harder and drier as you go up. We are 
speaking of their consistency at ordinary house or summer tempera- 
tures, say 70° F. At this temperature the marrow of the small bones 
near the caribou hoof is a clear liquid, of about the appearance 
of melted lard that is almost cold enough to congeal. We use it 
sometimes for gun oil if we run out of the commercial kinds. Not 
only are the marrows harder away from the hoof but the same 
applies to the fat after it is tried out. Tried-out fat from the 
phalanges is a thick liquid; tried-out fat of the humerus or femur 
is a tallow about as hard as if made from kidney fat. 

Apart from those already discussed, there remains but one im- 



234 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

portant kind of caribou fat and that is the tallow secured by first 
crushing and later boiling the bones. A difference in flavor and 
hardness may exist between tallows made from different bones but 
in this regard we have no experience, for when bones are pounded 
to be boiled for fat they are taken indiscriminately, vertebrae and 
briskets, head bones, long bones, back bones, etc. 

This discussion relates to the season when the caribou are fat. 
At certain seasons no fat is discernible, even behind the eyes or close 
to the bone of the brisket. The marrow in all the bones alike is 
then liquid and has the appearance of blood, and I do not know 
that there is a difference in consistency or flavor. Such marrow 
when boiled congeals into a slightly tough substance, resembling 
the white of hard-boiled egg both in texture and flavor, or rather 
lack of flavor. 

Experiment has shown us that fats and marrows of mountain 
sheep, musk ox and moose are to be classified both in fiavor and 
consistency about as those of caribou, with two principal exceptions: 
In the moose it is considered that "moose nose" is about the most 
agreeable. In the musk ox the fat of the neck is rated higher than 
that of the back, while on the caribou there is not much fat on the 
neck and what there is is considered to have no specially fine flavor. 

Apart from any intrinsic interest these notes may have as ap- 
plied to the caribou directly and from their analogy to other mam- 
mals used for food, I offer them thinking that students of human 
anatomy may not in their investigation of the marrow of man have 
noticed these differences. It seems to me it would be interesting to 
note whether human marrow gets harder the farther away from the 
toes and finger-tips. The question of comparative flavor of human 
marrows will probably have to remain speculative. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

RECORDS, RETROSPECTS AND REFLECTIONS 

THE day after moving to the deer-kill we discovered we were on 
an island about eight miles in its longest diameter and three or 
four hundred feet high, with the mainland about a mile away 
from the eastern end and about three miles to the south of our camp. 
There was only one more caribou on the island. This we killed and 
with its meat and what remained of the other six we crossed over and 
made an encampment on a sandspit near a good harbor. Here 
was considerable driftwood not only for fire but for building an 
elevated platform, upon which we stored such belongings as might 
be injured by foxes and other animals. Incidentally, we hoped 
that this conspicuous landmark might be seen by the Star when she 
came along and might guide her to where we were. At Norway 
Island we had erected the day after landing a conspicuous beacon 
on the highest hill. It contained a brief record of our journey from 
Alaska, and said that we expected to spend the summer hunting on 
the mainland to the east, accumulating meat for food and skins 
for clothing for the coming winter, and that we would be on con- 
tinual watch for the Star. 

June 28th and the days following Storkerson made a map of 
Bernard Island and killed on the coast one ugrug, or bearded seal, 
and some small ordinary seals, while I examined the mainland, 
especially to the east. We found Bernard Island to be in the mouth 
of a river larger than one would expect on Banks Island, in spring 
more than half a mile wide, while even ten or fifteen miles inland 
and as late as August when the water is far below spring level, 
one who does not want to swim has to look carefully for a ford. 
By September, however, there are numerous places where the stream 
is no more than knee deep, generally where it is wider and more 
rapid, so that the width of a ford fifteen or twenty miles inland will 
be thirty or fifty yards. 

In the comparative leisure of these first days ashore I made 
long retrospective diary entries dealing with the circumstances under 
which we left Alaska and with the journey to Norway Island. 
Again I find reflections on how much more we could have accom- 

235 



236 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

plished had we been able to start a few weeks earlier from Martin 
Point, again the regret of our lost equipment in the separation from 
Wilkins and Castel. I find an entry about Storkerson and An- 
dreasen in which, as I felt at the time, I gave them less than their 
due: "They are as well suited for this work as it is easy to im- 
agine. Neither of them worries or whines and both are optimistic 
about the prospects. This last is important. Traveling with an 
empty sled and living off the country is no work for a pessimist." 
The longer the time that intervenes the more my feeling of grati- 
tude to these men and my appreciation of them has grown. Those 
who have gone through a difficult experience anywhere will know 
that nothing more could be said, after all, than this: that if I had 
a similar trip to make over again I could not imagine any com- 
panions I should prefer to Storkerson and Ole. 

The diary record of our dogs is that "they have done probably 
better work than any team in Arctic exploration. Two hundred and 
forty-four pounds to the dog is, I believe, a heavier load than dogs 
have heretofore hauled, and ours came near making thirty miles a 
day with that load in fair going. We have never had to do more 
than help them over the worst places." An Arctic traveler's feel- 
ing of gratitude to the dogs can be scarcely less keen than to men. 
Still, there was one of them, the same "Bones," who did little hard 
work after warm weather began. Nothing could induce Bones to 
pull steadily when the sun was shining warm on his sleek, fat back. 
When we landed, all our dogs were as fat as it is good for a dog to 
be, but Bones was fatter than that. Possibly this was his trouble. 

What one thinks "at the time" has its significance, so here is a 
diary estimate of the journey: 

"Our success, although less than half of what it would have 
been with a start three weeks earlier (so it looks now), has been 
greater than we had any reason to hope on March 22nd when we 
left Martin Point. We have carried a line of soundings of over 
4,500 feet through four degrees of latitude and nineteen degrees of 
longitude, most of it unexplored and all of it unsounded ocean. We 
have determined the 'continental shelf off Alaska and off Banks 
Island, and have learned something of the currents of the Beau- 
fort Sea. Most of what we have learned is contrary to what men 
'knew' before. This summer we may be able to do some further 
useful work in geography, geology and archaeology in Banks Island. 
Next winter (if the Star and Sachs are able to follow my instruc- 
tions) we can with our greater experience and better base hope for 
a more successful year. Counting on them, I now plan two trips; 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 237 

one northwest from Cape Alfred, then north and then east to the 
north end of Prince Patrick Island; the other northwest from the 
north end of Prince Patrick Island, then north and east to Isachsen 
Land and back to Prince Patrick or Melville Island (in whichever 
place the Star is wintering). The most promising and interesting 
ice trip that I can see, however, would be to go north from, say- 
Cape Halkett in Alaska in February to 77° or 78° N. latitude and 
then east to Prince Patrick Island. That is a trip I hope some 
time to make." * 

And here is the record we placed in the beacon on Bernard 
Island: 

"June 30, P. M., 1914. 
"Storker Storkerson, Ole Andreasen and myself landed on the island 
next offshore from this one June 25th — men, dogs and gear all in good 
condition. Shall proceed to-morrow SE to the mainland. According to 
circumstances we may go up the river, in the mouth of which this island 
lies, to explore it; or we may go south along the coast towards Kellett. 
If no traces of us have been found farther south, any vessel of the 
Canadian Arctic Expedition finding this should proceed south along the 
mainland ten or fifteen miles in search of a beacon with further informa- 
tion. If none is found, the vessel should erect a beacon or two with infor- 
mation and then go back to this island or some place near it and prepare 
to winter. Wood should be energetically gathered from the beach within 
20 miles each way and caribou should be hunted early to provide fat 
meat. There appears to be a good harbor on the SE side of the island 
(just beyond the prominent hill on the S comer). There seems also 
a harbor on the east of the island offshore from this one and there may 
be others on the mainland. If no suitable harbor is found, the vessel 
should look for one to the north rather than the south. The Karluk, 
should she come, might try to reach Prince Patrick Island if her com- 
mander thinks it advisable; the North Star and Mary Sachs should not 
go beyond Banks Island (except after picking us up). If no traces of 
us are found, small caches with things not likely to be destroyed by bears 
might be made for our use in two or three places. We have over 200 
rounds of ammunition and both rifles are in good order, so there need 
be no fear for us on the score of starvation. 

"V, Stefansson." 

For the first week or two in Banks Island we saw each day- 
some new kind of bird. On June 30th appeared the first phalarope 
and the first rock ptarmigan, although there had been already per- 

* A trip commencing with such a program was actually made in 1918. On 
account of my illness, the command was taken by Storkerson who has written 
an account of the enterprise which I have summarized in the Appendix of 
this book. 



238 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

haps a hundred willow ptarmigan. From the fact that no females 
appeared, it is probable that ptarmigan were already nesting. No 
ravens or hawks were noticed the first part of the summer, al- 
though we now know that both ravens and golden eagles are na- 
tive to the vicinity at this time of year. 

We have now come to a point where we must mention an animal 
that touches this story frequently later on, the "musk ox." And 
I don't think we had better call him "musk ox" in the rest of the 
book. The name is in a sense libelous of him, as it is in a sense 
deceptive to the reader. 

I have made no researches to discover who first perpetrated the 
blunder of calling him "musk ox." It may have been some early 
English navigator who was a better sailor than zoologist and mis- 
identified him with the musk deer of Asia. Or possibly he was more 
of a trader than he was a scientist and wanted to lead people to 
believe that he had discovered a new commercial source of the 
costly musk perfume of our ancestors — a trick with many parallels 
in early exploration, of which none is more interesting than Eric 
the Red's frank admission that he named Greenland so in order 
to induce his fellow Norsemen to colonize it. 

But once under the view of keen-eyed scientists the "musk ox" 
(and now we are through with the word, for we can exchange it for 
a better) got the fairly truthful descriptive name of ovibos, or sheep- 
cow. This is what he is to the casual view — a cow (or bull) with a 
coat of wool. For a description of his peculiarities and his excep- 
tional merits from the point of view of usefulness to us humans, we 
shall wait for the account of that period of our adventures when 
he was our intimate and (so far as we would let him) friendly 
associate. 

For the present I shall merely convey a hint of some of many 
reasons for refusing to imply by a misnomer that this animal has 
attributes that are really foreign to him. Sverdrup * says: "Having 
shot many of these animals and drunk the milk of the cows, with- 
out ever detecting the flavour of musk from which they are sup- 
posed to derive their name, I have decided to call them in this book 
polar oxen." We shall in general follow Sverdrup, and the great 
British explorers of the middle century who usually referred to these 
animals as "cattle."** It requires inhibition to refrain from using 

* "New Land," by Otto Sverdrup, London, 1904. See footnote to p. 35 of 
Vol. I. 

**See the various journals of the Franklin Search as printed in the British 
Parliamentary Blue Books. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 239 

"ovibos" as a "popular" name, and perhaps I shall do so occasion- 
ally — not so much to give variety as to see how the reader likes it. 
But for the weighty authority of the Parliamentary Blue Books 
and of Sverdrup, who give us the precedent for calling them "cattle," 
"polar cattle," and "polar oxen," I should have favored "ovibos" 
as a name for daily speech no less than for scientific use. 

We soon came to the conclusion that while polar oxen were now 
either rare or extinct in our immediate vicinity, there had been tre- 
mendous numbers up to thirty or forty years ago. This was to be 
inferred from the number of bleaching skeletons. Later I lived in 
Melville Island, a present habitat, where they are supposed to be as 
numerous to the square mile as in any ordinary arctic territory; 
and yet it is clear from the number of bones that there must have 
been at least ten times as many to the mile in Banks Island as 
there are now in Melville Island. This is natural and follows from 
the greater fertility of Banks Island. It is not in the main a matter 
of latitude but of topography. Melville Island is prevailingly moun- 
tainous, with large stretches where there is scarcely a blade of 
grass; the valleys and low places may be fertile enough, yet there 
are low, flat plains almost as rocky and barren as the mountains. 
In Banks Island there are mountains in the north end and in the 
south, but the rugged topography even in these places affords more 
areas suited to vegetation than does Melville Island. About three- 
quarters of Banks Island, embracing the entire middle, is best 
described to the person who has not traveled in the Arctic as typical 
prairie land. In the days before North Dakota was settled by 
farmers, I have seen there areas which could not by a casual glance 
be distinguished from the central portions of Banks Island. If you 
are a botanist and look closely at the nearby ground you will no- 
tice strange plants that do not grow in North Dakota, but you 
will notice also many familiar plants, such as bluegrass, timothy, 
golden-rod, dandelion, poppy, watercress and edible mushrooms. 
But if you glance off to a distance you will see the same sort of green 
hills rolling away towards the horizon whether you are in Banks 
Island or in certain parts of Nebraska, North Dakota or southern 
Alberta. If there is a difference it is likely to be in the greater num- 
ber of small lakes in Banks Island, although even these are not 
very numerous, because the island has what the geologist calls 
"mature drainage," so that little creeks carry off the water that 
might otherwise be left in the form of ponds and lakes. 

This was an ideal country for polar oxen, which are grass-eaters, 
with mouths not adapted to the picking up of the lichens that hug 



240 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the rocky ground where they typically grow. In the opening of 
many paunches I have never found any appreciable amount of 
lichens, and am of the opinion that whatever lichens one does find 
have been accidentally picked up with the grass. This shows how 
much at variance with the facts must be the common belief that 
they prefer a mountainous and rocky country. In Melville Island 
and elsewhere I have found the living animals and the bones of the 
dead most abundant in the grassiest country, which, other things 
being equal, is also the most nearly level and the lowest. In moun- 
tainous districts animals will be found in the deep valleys grazing 
in sunny spots, not for any desired warmth, but merely because that 
is where the grass grows most luxuriously. If the bones of the dead 
are occasionally found on rocky hilltops, it is because the bands 
have retreated there in an attempt to defend themselves against 
the attacking Eskimos. 

The absence of cattle from the fertile hills and valleys of Banks 
Island where they were recently so numerous has a historical ex- 
planation. The scattered bones are a confirmation of McClure's 
statement that when he wintered in Prince of Wales Straits and in 
the Bay of Mercy in the years 1850-53 ''cattle" were numerous 
everywhere. In 1906 at Ilerschel Island I was told by whalers that, 
a few years before, a landing had been made in southwest Banks 
Island from the Penelope, which was then owned and commanded 
by Eskimos, and the Narwhal, commanded by Captain George 
Leavitt, and that recent traces of polar cattle as well as of Eskimos 
hunting them had been seen near Cape Kellett. 

Then in May, 1911, when I visited the Prince Albert Sound 
Eskimos,* I found that most of that group spent a part of the win- 
ter in southeast Banks Island and that some of them occasionally 
spent the summer in the interior. From them I learned that cattle 
were occasionally found, and they told me specifically about a 
small band which during the spring of 1911, probably March, came 
down from the hills to the coast at the southeast corner of Banks 
Island, where they were killed. These same Eskimos told me that 
at a time which I estimated as less than half a dozen years after 
McClure abandoned his ship the Investigator in the Bay of Mercy, 
some Eskimos had found her. She was to them, naturally, a veri- 
table treasure house, especially for her iron. The news spread 
through Eskimo communities as far south as Coronation Gulf and 
east towards King William Island, and the Bay of Mercy for 
twenty or thirty years became a place of pilgrimage for perhaps a 

*See pp. 281 ff., "My Life With the Eskimo." 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 241 

thousand Eskimos. They made long trips there to get material for 
knives, arrow points, and the like, certain families making the 
Journey one year and other families another year. 

Banks Island, which is less than 20,000 miles in area, has prob- 
ably always been, as it is now, a country only moderately supplied 
with caribou. However that may be, cattle are much easier for 
Eskimo hunters to kill and the people who made the journeys to the 
Bay of Mercy undoubtedly lived during the summer largely on their 
meat. A few, after a hasty visit to Mercy Bay, may have gone to 
the southwest quarter of the island where geese can be killed by the 
thousand with clubs during the moulting season. Ovibos is one of 
the most conspicuous animals on earth and easily found. He has 
not the cunning for concealment nor the ability, and indeed not 
the temperament for flight. The Eskimo method of hunting is to 
sick a few dogs at the herd, which then forms in a defensive circle, 
the large animals on the outside and the calves and weaker ones 
in the center. This defense does well against the dogs, as it would 
against a similar attack of wolves, but is of no avail against the 
Eskimos, who lash their hunting knives to their walking sticks, 
converting them into lances, and go up and stab the entire herd. 
Or they may use their bows and copper-pointed arrows with 
equal effect. 

When I got the story in the spring of 1911 about the discovery 
by the Eskimos of McClure's ship and their pilgrimages for a score 
of years to the island, I might have inferred the complete or ap- 
proximate extinction of ovibos. I had not done so, however, and 
for some time after landing in Banks Island we were expecting daily 
to come in contact with them. We now know that the giving out 
of the iron in Mercy Bay must have been about coincident with 
their extinction. Their survival was longest in the south end of the 
island because that was most remote from the iron and therefore 
least visited. That the Eskimos had spent a part of each winter 
from February to April on the southeast coast does not affect the 
case materially, for at that season these Eskimos never hunt inland, 
or at least did not do so up to 1917, though they will doubtless 
change their habits as soon as the majority of them receive rifles 
from the incoming traders. It was not these winter visits, therefore, 
but the summer ones that led to the extermination of the polar ox. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

SUMMER LIFE IN BANKS ISLAND 

ON July 2nd my diary records a word against the ravens and 
gulls. We predatory animals do not get along together any 
too well and are inclined to be jealous of one another. On 
this occasion I had killed a caribou that had a little fat, and while 
I was gone after pack dogs to fetch the meat, some gulls and ravens 
had found the carcass. They did not have time to eat much, but 
they did have time to eat every speck of fat. We had given up seal 
hunting because the pursuit of the seal on the summer ice is a very 
sloppy undertaking. Caribou fat was therefore precious to us and 
was as yet of limited quantity because the season was too early. 
Hence my annoyance at the gulls. 

Next day I killed two bulls that had half an inch of back 
fat, and from that time on we no longer stinted ourselves on fat, 
although it was well towards the end of July before we began to 
give much of it to the dogs. This was not entirely because we were 
short of it but partly because we were anxious to save it for the 
winter. It was conceivable that ice conditions might prevent the 
Star's coming, in which case we should need fat badly, both for 
food and for winter candlelight. The first part of the winter 
we would then spend in Bank's Island and begin traveling when 
the light should be abundant in the spring. We talked of going 
to Victoria Island and thence to the mainland and over to Great 
Bear Lake, a country thoroughly familiar to me from my second 
expedition. But secretly I was hoping that when spring came we 
should, even in the absence of ships, find ourselves in such spirits 
and so equipped that we could make a second ice journey, prefer- 
ably northwest from Banks Island. 

To spend a summer in Banks Island as we did that one was a 
delight. Storkerson and I knew well the tricks and methods of 
living in an arctic land and Ole proved an apt pupil. The caribou 
grew fatter and their skins more sleek and better for clothing. 
We killed altogether about forty fat bulls and dried over half a 
ton of back fat, the equivalent of that much bacon. We lived on 

242 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 243 

the most palatable parts, the heads and back bones, and the dogs 
lived mainly on the internal organs, while we sliced thin, spread 
out on stones and dried in the sun for future use the hams, shoulders 
and other fleshy parts. Being sailors, Storkerson and Ole were both 
good at sewing, and they talked much about the fine clothes they 
were going to make from the skins for themselves and me if the 
ships should fail to bring Eskimo families with their incomparable 
seamstresses from the mainland. 

Like many others, I had gathered from reading polar books 
that fuel is hard to get in arctic lands, at least where driftwood is 
absent. But during my previous expedition I had learned that on 
the mainland of northern Canada, at least, there is excellent fuel 
to be found nearly everywhere, and so it proved on Banks Island. 
It has always been a marvel to me how the northern Indians who 
hunt out on the so-called '^barren grounds" and the Eskimos of 
northern Alaska are able to grow up from childhood to maturity 
and old age without learning, either by accident or by the instruc- 
tion of some wiser people, how to use certain common plants 
for fuel. 

Readers of Frank Russell, Warburton Pike, Caspar Whitney, and 
others know how the northern Indians load up their sleds with dry 
spruce wood for furtive dashes into the dreaded "barren grounds." 
They use a little for cooking each day, and when in a week or so the 
supply is gone they expect to be on their way back and almost 
within reach of the spruce forests again. And if through any cir- 
cumstance the journey is a little long, there are tales of hardship 
which seems to be felt no less keenly by the Indian than by the 
white narrator. It was so with the Eskimos of northern Alaska. 
When they went inland in days antedating blue-flame kerosene 
stoves, they used to take with them driftwood from the coast, or 
seal or whale oil to burn in their stone stoves or lamps. If they 
ran out of these they used to dig in the snow for willows, being thus 
a stage in advance of the northern Indian in resourcefulness in the 
open country. But if no willows were to be found and the seal 
oil ran out, they hurried back to the coast without a fire. This in 
spite of the fact that most or all coast tribes in Alaska knew that 
there were other Eskimo tribes in the interior — the inland Otur- 
kagmiut and their neighbors — who had the art of finding fuel other 
than willows in the open country wherever they went. The Macken- 
zie River Eskimos to the eastward are completely ignorant of how 
to find fuel in the open country even in summer, except willows. 
But the Eskimos of Coronation Gulf and east all the way to Hud- 



244 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

son's Bay find no difficulty in securing it in winter or summer, al- 
though their country is not nearly so well supplied with fuel plants 
as is the southerly "barren ground" into which the Dog-ribs and 
Yellowknives make their furtive dashes, or the northern portion 
of Alaska where the Point Barrow Eskimos experience fuel scarcity. 

The summer of 1910 I was living with three western Eskimo 
companions among the Eskimos of Coronation Gulf. When after 
a day's march across the prairie we camped in the evening, my 
three Eskimos used to scatter and go sometimes a mile in search 
of small willows which they would gather with great difficulty into 
bags and bring home on their backs. Before this willow gathering 
was done our local Eskimo traveling companions would have their 
own supper cooked and ready to eat, for they used for fuel a sort 
of "heather," Cassiope tetragona, which grew in many places and 
always in those we selected for camp sites. I pointed out the 
great advantage of using these plants for fuel, but conservatism is 
a trait that is always stronger the more ignorant the people, and my 
Eskimos were unwilling to listen. Their people had always traveled 
in this kind of country and they had always used willows. It 
was an application in a field other than religion of the sentiment of 
the well-known hymn: " 'Twas good enough for father, 'twas good 
enough for mother." They seemed to feel there was something 
essentially wrong or degraded about using a "grass" when wood 
was available. This same conservatism had prevented their ances- 
tors as long as they lived in Alaska from learning the art of "grass" 
burning from the Oturkagmiut. There they were in their own coun- 
try and public sentiment was overwhelmingly on their side, but 
here they were in the minority with everybody laughing at them. 
They stood pat for a month, but finally gave in; and before fall 
we were able to cook a meal as quickly as any of the local people. 

This is a digression, the point being that the plant Cassiope 
tetragona grows abundantly in most parts of Banks Island, and that 
usually we were able to pick a camp site where around our camp fire, 
in an area no larger than the floor space of a bedroom, would be 
fuel enough to cook a meal. In sunshiny weather with a moderate 
breeze blowing I would cook with heather even were dry willow 
at hand, and in my experience dry willow is rare, at least of that 
type which is most prevalent in the northern part of the North 
American mainland. There is, however, in Banks Island and the 
northerly islands and in rare places on the mainland another "wil- 
low" which has roots many times as large as that part of the plant 
which is above ground. The roots are found dead and sticking out 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 245 

on the tops of high hills, so that occasionally in summer and fre- 
quently when there was snow on the ground we used them in pref- 
erence to heather, and especially in calm weather or after a heavy 
rain. But no matter how soaked with water, Cassiope can easily be 
burned if you know the method and if there is a strong breeze fan- 
ning the fire and kindling enough to start the blaze. 

Mosquitoes, the one serious drawback of the North — far more 
serious in the minds of all who know than winter darkness, ex- 
treme cold or violent winds — were not very serious in Banks Island. 
For one thing the drainage is fairly good; for another, the winds 
blow often enough from the ocean to keep the temperature lower 
than mosquitoes like. Perhaps the richest hunting country known 
to me is the region between Great Bear Lake and Coronation Gulf, 
but it has the disadvantage of a plague of mosquitoes and flies. And 
so on the whole these months of tenting and wandering in Banks 
Island are the most delightful of my summer recollections from the 
North, though they did not come quite up to autumn and early 
winter just north of the arctic circle on Horton River or on the 
Coppermine. 

I feel like mentioning here that I cannot understand the psy- 
chology of northern travelers who employ Eskimos and Indians to 
do their hunting for them. I would as soon think of engaging a 
valet to play my golf or of going to the theatre by proxy. Not that 
I enjoy the killing of animals as such, but I should dislike extremely 
the feeling of dependence in work or play, of knowing that it hinged 
on the skill and good will of any one, no matter how competent, 
whether I should have something to eat to-morrow or whether my 
plans were to fail for lack of food. I do not see how any one could 
get much enjoyment out of living in a camp supported by hired 
hunters. Neither have I at the time nor in retrospect any hesi- 
tancy of mind when I compare the pleasures and ease of the city or 
the summer resort with the northern caribou hunt, whether it be 
in the soft air and sunshine of summer or in December's keenest 
wind and snow. The one sort of pleasure is passive, receptive, 
enervating — ^you are jaded by it and the keen edge of your enjoy- 
ment turns dull. But the open life of him who lives by the 
hunt keeps indefinitely the thrill of endeavor and achievement, a 
thing never to be bought or secured by having others carry out 
for you the most elaborate or ingenious of programs. And all of 
this becomes even more worth while when the food and clothing of 
your companions depend upon the hunt, and most when your very 
lives hang on success. 



246 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

The first half of July we hunted from our camp on the mainland 
opposite Bernard Island, but in the latter half Storkerson and I 
made a trip into the interior, mainly for exploration but partly for 
hunting, leaving Ole to guard the depot on the coast. As fat is 
precious above all things in the Arctic and caribou fat good to eat 
beyond most food of any kind, we chose to kill old bulls, for they 
were now the fattest. It is the nature of caribou that different 
ages and sexes are fat at different times of the year. A compara- 
tive statement of their fatness is about as follows: 

In late November after the rutting season the old bulls are so 
thin that there is no trace of fat even behind their eyes, and the mar- 
row in their bones is like blood. At this time both the cows and the 
young bulls are about at their fattest, although the proportion to the 
total body weight is never as high as in fat old bulls. By Christmas 
the young bulls have lost most or all of their fat, while the cows have 
less but are still not thin. About this time or in January the old bulls 
shed their antlers and from that time take on fat, although none 
is discernible at first. By February or March, when the budding 
antlers of old bulls are six or eight inches long, the marrow im- 
proves and traces of fat appear behind the eyes, about the kidneys 
and on the brisket. The young bulls are still lean and the cows 
carrying their young have become considerably thinner, although 
they have a little back fat and considerable intestinal fat, especially 
caribou in the islands north of Canada where they are fatter than in 
most places on the mainland. By May or June the cows have lost all 
fat while the oldest bulls have gained enough so that their meat be- 
comes palatable. The young bulls show no perceptible change. In 
July, when the cows are just beginning to fatten the old bulls have a 
slab of fat on their backs covering the entire body forward to the 
neck, and reaching on the haunches a thickness of perhaps half an 
inch or an inch. By late August or early September this fat has be- 
come three inches thick in extreme cases, and will weigh before dry- 
ing thirty or forty pounds if the animal is large. At this time the 
intestinal fat is an additional ten or fifteen pounds besides the great 
amount on brisket, ribs, pelvis and elsewhere; so that you have 
from sixty to eighty pounds of fat on an animal the dressed weight 
of which, when head and hoofs have been removed, is probably be- 
tween 250 and 300 pounds. The cows also are moderately fat, and 
gain a little for the next month or two, as do the young bulls. 

From this statement the fatness of caribou is seen to depend 
not, as is commonly supposed, upon food and climate primarily but 
rather on the age and sex of the animal. Neither can it be the fact 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 247 

as set forth by certain writers that in midsummer, which would be 
July or August, caribou are poor simply because of their persecu- 
tion by insect pests, chiefly mosquitoes and botflies. The bulls at 
this season are approaching their fattest, even though the cows, 
upon which exclusively some authorities apparently base their 
reasoning, happen to be very poor. Since all caribou are greatly 
annoyed by mosquitoes and flies, it is reasonable to assume that they 
would be fatter if these pests were absent, but fat they are in spite 
of them if age and sex are right. 

Another point of evidence that the thinness of caribou in sum- 
mer is not primarily dependent on mosquitoes is that the cycle of 
fatness and leanness is about the same in the most mosquito- 
infested parts of the mainland as in the more northerly islands of 
the Canadian Archipelago where mosquitoes are so rare that in one 
island, Lougheed Island, we saw only one mosquito all summer. 
But in these northerly islands the caribou fatten a few days earlier 
and become a little fatter in proportion to the total body weight. 
That a caribou may be as fat in Lougheed Island on the first of 
August as it would be at Great Bear Lake the middle of August 
is probably due to the absence of mosquitoes in Lougheed Island; 
for the feed, although good, does not appear to be any better in 
the more northerly lands. 



The hunting and exploring trip into the interior of Banks 
Island was an interesting and delightful one for Storkerson and me. 
Here was a beautiful country of valleys everywhere gold and 
white with flowers or green with grass or mingled greens and brown 
with grass and lichens, except some of the hill tops which were 
rocky and barren. These hills differed in coloring, especially as 
seen from a distance, not so much because of the colors of the rock 
as because different vegetation prevails in different kinds of soil 
and different lichens on different rocks. There were sparkling 
brooks that united into rivers of crystal clearness, flowing over 
gravel bottoms. When we came to a stream we usually followed 
along, whether far a few hundred yards or several miles, until we 
came to a place where the river either split into branches or widened 
out. Here we took the packs off our dogs, for their short legs 
unfitted them for keeping a pack dry while fording, and with our 
good Eskimo boots keeping our feet dry we would wade across, 
the dogs swimming behind us. Heather was most abundant, and so 



248 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

were bull caribou, so that the meat we lived on and the fuel for 
cooking it were of the best. 

When we are on a hunt proper we pitch our camps on the 
tops of the highest and most commanding hills, for caribou are such 
mobile animals that one is likely to see almost as many while 
favorably encamped as while traveling from place to place. But 
this time we were not hunting primarily, so we used to camp in 
sheltered, sunny places beside brooks that had their banks thickly 
covered with heather, giving both water and fuel right at hand. 

I have just mentioned that the animals we were killing for fat 
were the oldest bull caribou we could find. People who do not 
know caribou and who think of them by analogy with cattle, 
imagine that the meat of a bull would not be especially palatable. 
All experienced hunters, however, Indian, Eskimo or white, know 
that the bulls are better eating than the cows or the calves, and 
the more palatable the older they are. To me the main considera- 
tion about meat is its flavor. The recommendation that meat is 
tender is the praise of a toothless generation and one addicted to 
such artificial cooking that we seldom get in our foods their native 
flavors, but rather flavors conferred on them by sauces and condi- 
ments. I prefer the terminology of our meat-eating ancestors 
whose various idioms, which we still keep though we hardly under- 
stand them, show that they knew meat flavors and appreciated 
them as hunters do. Having good teeth it is of little concern to 
me whether a piece of meat is tough or tender; what is important 
is the taste. 

Besides, a caribou can never be tough. No one familiar with 
their typical life history can believe that the meat will get tough 
through age, the factor which causes toughness among domestic 
chickens and cattle. These last under the artificial protection of 
domesticity may grow to any age, and polar bears and ovibos may 
live on by reason of their strength and habits. But caribou never 
live long after they are full grown. Northern wolves in books prey 
on fawns and yearlings, and doubtless it happens occasionally that 
a wolf kills a calf, but this is likely to be within twenty-four hours 
of the calf's birth. A calf is certainly not many days old when he 
is able to run faster than his mother and faster than any other 
member of the herd unless possibly the yearlings. The young cows 
can run faster than the old cows and the young bulls faster than the 
old bulls, so that when a herd is fleeing from wolves it is always 
the oldest bulls that bring up the rear. Observers who enjoy reading 
chivalry into the actions of animals doubtless find instances where 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 249 

their deductions are correct. I am not in a position to say whether 
an old bull would by choice bring up the rear so as to expose 
himself to being first victim of the wolves. But I do say that he 
has no option, especially at the beginning of the breeding season 
when he is additionally handicapped by the weight of his huge 
antlers and his fat. When you see a caribou that has been singled 
out for pursuit by wolves, it is in the first probability an old bull 
and in the second an old cow. Skeletons of wolf-killed animals 
are nearly always found to be the skeletons of these two. In any 
caribou country the fewness of the old bulls is surprising unless 
these points are understood. Even the "old" few are never old 
enough to be tough. 

Since that trip which gave me my first familiarity with the 
interior of Banks Island, I have crossed it in almost every direction, 
winter and summer, so that were all those routes plotted on the 
map it would be as if the island were covered with a spider web. 
We have thus made conclusive our inference on this journey, that 
cattle, although once numerous in Banks Island, are now either 
extinct or at the most represented by a few dozen animals near 
the north or south end, the parts we have least carefully examined. 



CHAPTER XXV 

OLE AND I GO HUNTING 

ON our midsummer hunt into the interior Storkerson and I were 
absent about twenty days from the coast and from Ole, who 
was there alone with three of the dogs, guarding our dried 
meat and skins. Most people would think he would have found this 
rather a lonesome job, and so should I had I not known him well. 

My first meeting with Ole was in 1912 in the spring when I 
was making a journey west along the north coast of Canada near 
the Mackenzie River. I found him in a trapping camp alone, 
where he told me he had been alone all winter. I remember ask- 
ing him then whether he did not find it lonesome. He replied that 
there was no reason why he should. There was always something 
happening; sometimes the weather would be so bad that he could 
not go outdoors, and being housebound constituted a sort of ad- 
venture; another day the weather was exceptionally good and then 
he could go out and visit his traps, sometimes finding them full 
and other times/ empty. There must be something wrong, he 
thought, with any one who hankered for more variety than that. 
But even to this was added a monthly visit from his brother who 
came with a fast dog team from the winter base of the Star twenty 
or thirty miles away, and who usually stayed two or three hours, 
returning home at night. "And then," Ole said, "there is scarcely 
a month some Eskimo does not come, and sometimes they stay 
overnight." 

There was no affectation about this with Ole. He was always 
glad to see visitors, but never lonesome between the visits. I can- 
not say that I ever quite understood this frame of mind, although 
I objectively realized it to be a fact that Ole would not mind in 
the least having Storkerson and me stay away a month if it suited 
us. 

The third week of our stay inland we had already been farther 
east and had returned to a point about twenty miles from the 
coast where we had killed and spread out to dry a good deal of fat 
caribou meat. After some discussion, we had come to the conclu- 
sion that polar bears were very rare if not absent on Banks Island, 
at least at this season, and that it might be safe to leave our food 

250 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 251 

supplies at the coast unprotected, bringing Ole inland to help with 
the hunt. I was also interested in the condition of the ice on the 
coast, for the coming of the Star was continually in my mind and 
the month of the possibility of this was almost at hand. The ice 
should have broken up already all along the north coast of Alaska 
and the three ships were, according to our best estimates, probably 
now in the vicinity of Herschel Island. It would not be more than 
a week or two till the Star could come across from the mainland to 
the south end of Banks Island, where in the vicinity of Cape Kellett 
she would await her chance to proceed north along the west coast 
whenever the ice should break away. The caribou were now get- 
ting towards their fattest and their skins had the right length of 
hair for clothing. It was important to hunt energetically for two 
or three weeks so as to have a large amount of meat and skins 
ready when the Star should arrive. 

So I started for Ole's coast camp, leaving Storkerson behind 
occupied with the meat-drying. He might be expected occasionally 
to kill caribou that came near camp, but his chief task was to 
assemble the drying meat and cover it up at the approach of rain 
or of a heavy fog, to spread it out again when the sun came out or 
the wind began to blow, and to protect it from gulls, foxes and 
wolves. 

It was a fine day when I started towards the coast, though it 
soon began to rain. Walking along the level bottom lands of 
the river, I came upon several small bands of caribou, and as I 
had not previously seen any when I had not needed to kill at least 
one of the band, I took the opportunity to experiment and see 
whether these were afraid of the appearance of a man. I found they 
behaved about the same as caribou would on the mainland in dis- 
tricts where they are frequently hunted. 

Before I got half-way home I was soaking wet, but one accus- 
tomed to the Arctic does not mind that as long as he keeps moving, 
though it is not easy to get used to being wet in camp at night. 
One adapts himself to almost anything, however, and I have been 
told with apparent sincerity by northern Indians that they do not 
mind sleeping in wet clothes, even when they are so cold that they 
shiver. After all, the testimony of one man who is used to a 
thing and likes it is worth more than that of a hundred who are 
not used to it and cannot imagine how they ever could find it 
tolerable. So probably any one could get used to sleeping cold 
and wet. 

About six miles from camp I came upon six bulls, one much 



252 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

bigger and fatter than the others. A northern hunter finds it hard 
to let go any opportunity for securing fat, and I accordingly killed 
this bull. I skinned it and got a slab of back fat weighing 
over forty pounds, which was at least ten pounds more than a bull 
of the same size would have had in the best hunting country known 
to me on the mainland at the same time of year. The reason prob- 
ably was in the cool weather and in the fewness of mosquitoes, for 
although the feed is excellent in Banks Island, it can scarcely be 
considered better than on the mainland in certain places. 

So it was evident that the caribou had not found this summer 
in Banks Island disagreeable. Neither had we, although a south- 
ern reader might infer the contrary from a glance at our meteoro- 
logical record. July 3rd, it says: "Sky overcast, snowing all day, 
temperature plus 28° to plus 32°." In another place it says that 
a slight amount of ice formed every night during the first half of 
July. We liked this weather for many reasons; one being that it 
kept down the mosquitoes. The chief reason was, however, doubt- 
less subjective. 

This was the typical weather of the arctic fall, although in a 
sense unseasonable in July. When an Iowa farmer speaks of 
"beautiful hot weather," he really means it, although if he were 
to analyze his feelings he might realize that half the pleasure he 
feels in the heat is in the thought that it is ripening his corn and 
fattening his pocketbook. An equally hot day may not please a 
North Dakota farmer so well, for he remembers that the ground 
is dry and his wheat is withering. And just as the heat ripens the 
corn, so does the cold July wind from the ice-covered sea fatten 
the caribou, or what amounts to the same thing, keep down the 
mosquitoes which would keep him from fattening. So also do we 
like that same cold wind. 

But in his exuberance of good health it is difficult for the arctic 
hunter to feel anything but pleasure in almost any kind of weather 
or almost any circumstance. I suppose what I am trying to ex- 
plain is about what the Biblical writer had in mind when he 
spoke of a strong man rejoicing to run a race. You may find in some 
volume of the scientific report of our expedition that during a cer- 
tain summer it snowed in every week but you should not infer it 
was bad weather in the sense that it made us uncomfortable. And 
it would not have made any one else uncomfortable either, if he had 
been dressed and housed and fed as we were, with the same years of 
training and experience behind him, the same sound health and the 
same infatuation with the work. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 253 

After cutting up my caribou and — with the gulls in mind — 
hiding the fat underneath the meat, I proceeded to the coast. Ole 
was waiting, happy as always and full of stories of his adventures 
while I had been gone. Most of these, as he told them, centered 
around wolves. It seemed that a pair of them, peculiarly sportive 
and mischievous, had been in the habit of coming near camp and 
getting the dogs excited, with a view of enticing them away. One 
day the dogs succeeded in breaking loose at both ends the long line 
by which all were tethered to two sticks. Dragging this line they 
gave chase to the wolves, Ole following. They were impeded by 
the weight of the rope and by getting tangled in it so that he was 
almost able to keep up. He fired several shots at the wolves, that 
tantalizingly were keeping just ahead of the dogs. This did not 
scare them. Of course he had little chance of hitting them, for he 
was out of breath. After a chase of several miles the dogs got 
finally so tangled in the line that Ole caught up with them. 

A year later I discovered that while this story was literally 
true, it had been told me with added emphasis and detail to appease 
any suspicions on the score of Ole's considerable expenditure of 
ammunition while I was away. Early in July we had taken an 
ammunition inventory, finding that we had 109 rounds for the 
Mannlicher and 157 for the Winchester rifle. This was not a great 
deal even with the most careful shooting, for there was no guaran- 
tee that any of our ships would get to us during the summer, in 
which case this ammunition had to secure food for us for all of 
the coming winter and would have to take us east across Banks 
Island and across Prince of Wales Straits, then south along Victoria 
Island, across Dolphin and Union Straits to the mainland and 
across several hundred miles of mainland, probably to Bear Lake 
and to the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Fort Norman on the 
Mackenzie River. When we are stationary it is possible to aver- 
age better than 125 pounds of meat to each cartridge, but in making 
rapid journeys it is not possible to be so economical, for when a 
heavy animal is killed only a part of the meat can be hauled along, 
causing a good deal of waste and bringing down the average meat 
equivalent of the ammunition. So Ole knew I put a high value on 
the ammunition; nor could his own estimate of its value have dif- 
fered much from mine, for he saw equally our dependence on it for 
comfort and safety. 

Now I have mentioned that the day we landed, while I was away 
getting the first caribou killed, Storkerson and Ole had eaten the 
last of the food we brought ashore and had discussed the probable 



254 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

delectability of the island geese, and the harshness of my rule that 
no ammunition must be spent on birds. It appears that ever after 
that Ole's mouth kept watering for the geese he had not tasted. 
Part of his contentment at being left alone when we went inland 
had been due, he confessed to Storkerson some months afterwards, 
to his lively anticipation of eating at least one fat goose while we 
were gone. Accordingly, we were scarcely out of sight when he got 
his rifle, sneaked around to a neighboring pond and killed a goose. 
But geese are small targets and it is not easy to get close to them, 
so that he wasted half a dozen bullets before he got the first one. 
Hence the necessity of impressing me, in case I should audit the 
ammunition account, with the large number of cartridges necessary 
to kill or scare the wolves that had been enticing our dogs away. 

But what annoyed Ole most was that the goose when he came 
to eat it did not taste as good as the caribou he had been living 
on. While still of the firm opinion that caribou meat was "all right 
if you had nothing else" and that many kinds of meat, such as 
goose, were better and especially desirable "for a change," he had 
in reality become so accustomed to caribou in a month, and his 
tongue if not his mind had been so thoroughly converted to it, that 
the flavor of goose did not prove half as agreeable. He told Stork- 
erson that if he had followed his inclination he would have eaten 
only a part of the goose, giving the rest to any dog that might have 
wanted it, but he decided to punish himself for the wasted ammu- 
nition by abstaining from caribou till the goose was eaten. Any 
ammunition he spent thereafter during our absence was fired at 
wolves. 

Ole had been studying the tides, partly because of our scientific 
interest in them and partly because the sea ice that has been land- 
fast during the winter "goes abroad" only when there is a high tide 
such that the ice is first lifted off the sea bottom by it and then 
pushed away from land by the wind. Ole had found that in 
Banks Island, as on the north coast of Alaska, there is a "low tide" 
with east winds, and a "high tide" with west winds. But what he 
had noticed in addition was that here the lowest water was brought 
about by a north wind. This was well exemplified the day I got 
home, for it was then blowing stiffly from the north and the water 
was six inches lower than it had been during our absence or at any 
time since we began to observe its height by sticks planted at the 
beach. This was not encouraging, for the winds that might be ex- 
pected to take the ice off could not easily do so because of the heavy 
grounding of the ice at low tide, while the high water that lifted it off 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 255 

the bottom would be accompanied by a wind that shoved it on the 
land. What we would have to hope for would be first a west wind, 
raising the water level, and then a sudden shift of wind through 
south to east before the water had time to fall, a sequence of cir- 
cumstances that might not occur in a whole summer. 

After a day at the camp we started back towards Storkerson's 
hunting place, leaving all our dried meat and skins on an elevated 
platform high enough to escape wolves and foxes, although unpro- 
tected against polar bears. When we got to where I had killed the 
fat bull two days before we found that foxes and gulls had eaten 
about a third of the meat and about half the fat. The gulls alone 
would not have had the ingenuity to get at the fat where I had 
hidden it, but the foxes had pulled the concealing meat away. It 
happened that I was able to kill that evening another fat bull a 
few hundred yards from the same place, to make up for the loss. 

White foxes were spending the summer in Banks Island in large 
numbers, but we lost surprisingly little meat by their thieving. 
Often they seemed even contemptuous in the way they passed it by 
untouched. This was probably because they were so well fed with 
eggs, young birds and lemmings. 

When we got back to Storkerson we found that he had been 
bothered by wolves much as Ole had been. Some of our meat was 
at his camp but a considerable part of it was still out in the field, 
where several caribou had been killed, cut up and their meat spread 
out to dry to make it lighter for carrying home, only the fat being 
immediately taken to camp. Our experience with foxes and gulls 
had been that they were not very destructive of the meat, but now 
that wolves were about much of it was lost. 

Wolves had been few during our first month and their appear- 
ance now was probably connected with the approach of the cow 
caribou. So far we had seen large bulls chiefly — very few cows and 
few small bulls. Now small bulls and cows became numerous, 
apparently coming from the north or northeast. This did not mean 
that caribou became as numerous as on the mainland, for we never 
saw more than twenty or thirty a day. I have seen a band of about 
two hundred in Banks Island, but several years' experience shows 
that bands of two hundred are as rare in Banks Island as bands 
of two thousand on the mainland north of Great Bear Lake. In 
summer there are probably not more than two or three thousand 
caribou in the whole island, with perhaps a few more in winter 
that come from Victoria Island to the east. 

Partly to explore further and partly to give Ole a chance to 



256 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

see as much of the country as Storkerson had seen, he and I now 
made a hunting trip eastward from Storkerson's camp, a distance 
of about twenty miles. We found a beautiful country of rolling 
hills with small lakes and again an abundance of heather. I re- 
member particularly one camping place in the bottom-lands of a 
small river where we pitched our tent on hard, level ground a few 
yards from a stream of the best water in the world, amid so much 
heather that we agreed that on ten acres of ground in a week or so 
we could have picked enough fuel to last the winter. 

Everywhere the Eskimos had preceded us, although apparently 
none had been there in ten years. We formed the opinion that few 
of the relics were very old, probably none over a century. There 
were "tent rings," or circles of stones that had been used to hold 
down the flaps of a tent and had been rolled away when camp 
had been broken, giving a somewhat enlarged outline where the 
tent had stood. The Victoria Island Eskimos nowadays occasion- 
ally made a wall of sod from eight to twenty inches high as the 
base of their tents. Walls of this kind are found here and there 
over Banks Island, although not numerous. The tent rings are 
in places naturally suited to them — occasionally on hilltops and 
more frequently in lower places where there are "nigger heads," the 
little knobs one can take hold of and break loose with the hands, 
getting round pieces of sod varying in size from a grapefruit to a 
pumpkin. Of these the Eskimos had built the sod foundations for 
their tents, and we used them occasionally for the erection of 
beacons. 

Near many of the camp sites were shavings and small pieces of 
wood. In at least three cases out of four these had been brought 
from Mercy Bay, for they were fragments of barrel staves, painted 
boards, or other parts of a ship or of the equipment of a ship. This 
was confirmation of the accounts of McClure, sixty years before, 
who saw no Eskimos at all on Banks Island, from which he ap- 
pears to have thought that there were none and from which we 
now infer that they certainly cannot have been numerous. It was 
also confirmation of stories told me by the Prince Albert Sound 
Eskimos in 1911 and later, to the effect that there had been a great 
influx of people into Banks Island following the discovery by some 
of their number of McClure's abandoned ship, the Investigator, in 
Mercy Bay, probably about 1855.* 

Often the Eskimo camp sites were in the vicinity of ovibos kill- 
ings. Sometimes these kills seem to have been what we may call 

*See "My Life With the Eskimo," p. 293, and elsewhere. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 257 

legitimate. The camp sites show heads and other bones that are 
the remains of animals actually used for food. This can be seen- 
by the fact that the heads have been partly cut up for cooking, 
some of the horns have been removed to make utensils, the bones 
have been broken for marrow and many of them gnawed by dogs, 
and sometimes there is evidence that the bones were pounded up 
and boiled to secure the last bit of fat from them. 

But in some cases it is only too clear that big herds were 
wantonly slaughtered. We have found groups of over twenty 
skeletons lying a few yards from each other. Such a slaugh- 
tering place has always borne some indication that a small 
part at least of the meat was used, and still it is not easy to 
be clear on this point, for the absent brisket bones and ribs, the 
parts Eskimos prefer for food, are also the parts most easily 
chewed up by wolves. That the bones of the foreleg, often found 
at a distance from the rest of the skeleton, were in some cases 
not found at all, is hardly an indication that an Eskimo carried the 
forequarters away. The foreleg is not a preferred piece of meat; 
and again, wolves in devouring a caribou or polar ox will eat the 
meat away in such fashion that the shoulder-blade comes loose 
from the body, so that the foreleg bones can be dragged away. 

When Eskimos kill a band of cattle it will depend entirely 
on circumstances whether they stop beside the kill and remain till 
the animals have been eaten up, or whether they pass on, taking 
with them nothing or nothing but fat. We cannot assume that they 
would by analogy with the early buffalo hunters kill the animals 
for the tongues. Eskimos may kill for fat or kill for skins or for 
both combined, but they never kill for the tongues. They may, 
however, kill for no purpose at all, and leave their victims to be 
eaten by predatory animals. 

Our wanderings in Banks Island, both this summer and summers 
following, never disclosed any Eskimo burial place, or any imple- 
ments or other artifacts that seem to have been deposited with the 
dead. We did find two or three skulls and some odd bones, though 
none of these seemed to be the remains of a real burial. Either 
such burial places as there are escaped us, or else no true burials 
have been made. It is possible, in other words, that the Eskimos 
who moved about the island did not have the burial customs of the 
mainland Eskimos, and left their dead behind, unprotected by 
stones or otherwise, to be devoured by the first animals that came 
along. In fact we know that the Eskimos of Coronation Gulf, 
sometimes, at least, merely wrap the body in skins and leave it on 



258 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the ground. These are near relatives of the people who came to 
Banks Island to plunder the Investigator, and it may be that the 
bodies of such people as died were similarly left. 

Ole's journey and mine was for pleasure and to pick up such 
incidental information as came in our way. We traveled so light 
that our three pack dogs were able to carry everything, and we 
wandered from hilltop to hilltop, enjoying the scenery, examining 
the ancient camp sites and killing a fat caribou whenever necessary. 
This combined the freedom from care of a picnic with the fascina- 
tion of exploration, for, except for Storkerson's excursion and mine 
some weeks earlier we were the first white men who had been in 
the interior of Banks Island. On the southwest side the American 
whalers are known to have made two landings but they never went 
beyond the beach, and the Eskimos whom they sent ashore to hunt 
did not go over four or five miles inland, for I have talked with 
them about it. It does not appear from McClure's records that in 
the two years which he spent at the Bay of Mercy on the north- 
east side of the island any of his men made journeys into the 
interior. 

Since I began to know the North its beauty, freedom and friend- 
liness have continually grown upon me. They were there from the 
first but my eyes were holden and I could not see them, for even in 
that clear air I walked wrapped in the haze of my bringing-up. 
With southern feelings and an assumption of the inferiority of 
that which is different, I failed to see the resources and values 
where they lay before me, and distrusted everything that was 
strange. Especially on such delightful and care- free journeys as we 
were now making it is difficult to realize that this land is not only 
assumed to be barren by those who do not know it, but has actually 
appeared so to men who have been there. Certainly it would -take 
keen eyes to read between the lines of McClure's narrative of hard- 
ship and heroism the soft beauty and homelikeness of Banks Island 
as I see it. 

When we had wandered around until we thought Storkerson 
might be getting lonesome, for he was unlike Ole, not used to living 
alone, we made our way back and found him and everything well, 
except that he was a little stiff from lying around the house in idle- 
ness. The trouble had been that he could not very well leave camp 
because of the hovering wolves. So long as a man is present a 
camp is in no danger from them, but unguarded it is at their mercy, 
whether there are dogs or not. For one thing, the dogs would not 
have the sense to stay in the camp and attempt to guard it, but 




tft 



A Tent Ring. 




Broken Summer Ice Along the Coast. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 259 

would probably give chase to the wolves,- and in a fight there could 
be no doubt of the outcome. The dogs were about the same size 
as wolves, weighing up to 130 pounds, but they had neither their 
swiftness of foot nor their cunning. Wolves would not allow them- 
selves to be overtaken unless they were numerous enough to get 
the best of the fight. 

To show what was most in our minds all through August, I 
quote my diary for the first day of that month: 

"This is probably the month of keenest expectations of all I 
have spent in the North. It is the season of navigation and our 
three small ships should be, with luck, as far east now as Cape 
Bathurst. The Star coming direct may arrive here any day the 
ice leaves the beach. She should reach Kellett in a few days from 
now and wait her chance there to proceed north. The Sachs should 
complete her errand accompanying Anderson to Listen Island and 
be at Kellett, too, soon after August 10th. The Alaska almost cer- 
tainly will have little trouble in reaching Cape Bexley if once she 
gets to Herschel Island. Even the Karluk may be heard from. 
There is nothing in the present or future I would not give to be 
aboard of her, and few things I would not give for news of her — 
nothing I would not pay for her safety, or rather that of her men. 
The vessel herself would not so much matter if nothing but hopes, 
plans and equipment went down with her." 

On our inland journey Ole and I had watched the weather, pre- 
pared to make rapidly for the coast should the wind lead us to 
think the ice might leave. The camp where we rejoined Storkerson 
was on a hill so high and commanding that although fifteen miles 
inland it allowed through glasses a view of the ice along the coast 
and around Bernard and Norway Islands. 

Now we spent much of every day scrutinizing the coast, watch- 
ing the gradually widening lane of shore water between the main- 
land and the grounded sea ice that was being melted by the warm 
water pouring from the land. It was one of the virtues of the 
Star that on account of her shallow draft she would be able to 
work her way up along this lane of thaw water even before the ice 
offshore broke up and was carried to sea by the wind. Once or 
twice near the middle of the month there was a slight shifting of 
the ice but the tide fell and grounded it again. But towards the 
close it became clear that although there was a ribbon of ice in the 
middle distance the ocean outside was clear. Strong winds blew 
from the east day after day, making it evident that no floating ice 
could be near, although the fogs that always hang to seaward when 



260 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

a land wind is blowing prevented us from seeing beyond the limits 
of the grounded ice. 

On the southwest coast of Banks Island between Nelson Head 
and Cape Kellett there is deep water inshore, and even in winter the 
ice is carried away from the land by any offshore wind. But north 
of Kellett there is a shelf of shallow water along the land that 
grows wider as you go north until towards the middle of Banks 
Island it is twelve or fifteen miles wide. In the vicinity of Norway 
Island the shelf becomes that much broader, so that it extends fif- 
teen or more miles beyond. On all this shelf there was the grounded 
ice that we speak of as "landfast." The Star might even make her 
way north between it and the land, but we knew that any ship could 
sail north outside of it. 

Towards the end of August navigation conditions had become so 
good that we began to despair of the Star's coming. It seemed then 
that only shipwreck or some condition almost equally serious other 
than that of ice must be keeping her away. I really made up my 
mind to this about the 18th of August and we were about to start 
south along the west coast, thinking she might be wrecked some- 
where between us and Kellett, when we had an unaccountable 
change of heart and decided to wait another week. By the 27th 
there was no use waiting further, so we dug a huge pit in the earth, 
lined it with stones, filled it with stores of dried meat, caribou 
tallow and caribou skins, and covered it with stones which would 
secure it from any animal except a polar bear. Not having seen a 
single bear since landing, we thought the cache might prove safe 
till we came back for it. 

Now the plan was to follow the coast south to Kellett, searching 
every bay for the Star or possible traces of her. If none were 
found we would return to our cache and stay through early winter 
until the ample daylight of February or early March. We talked 
about starting then for Ihe mainland, going first east into Victoria 
Island, then south through the country so well known to me from 
my previous expedition, across Coronation Gulf to Bear Lake. 
Privately I had in my mind the hope that we might get through 
the winter so well that my companions would in the spring be will- 
ing to make a second ice exploration, in which case the calculation 
would be to get to the mainland in May or June. 

We started along the coast southward on September 1st. The 
method of travel was that Storkerson and Ole followed behind 
with the camp equipment and food for three or four days, carried 
mostly by the dogs, although the men carried the bulkiest bedding. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 261 

In the morning after breakfast while they were arranging the dog 
packs and making ready for the march, I would start out with the 
aim of keeping three or four miles ahead of them all day. I trav- 
eled from hilltop to hilltop making little temporary monuments 
and leaving messages for them in case I had seen through my glasses 
anything on the basis of which any plan ought to be changed. It 
might be that I could see a bay running inland ahead of us, and my 
message would give warning and direct the course. Or I might 
see game, in which event the note would tell them whether to wait 
and watch until they saw the outcome of my hunting, or to make 
camp at some specified spot, or perhaps to go ahead to some other 
hill from which they could watch the hunting operations better. 
For several days no game was seen, nor were we in need of any, 
for we had started with dried meat enough for five or six days. 

I was able to travel much faster than the others, for heavily laden 
pack dogs will walk only about a mile and a half an hour. When 
no hunting was on I did such things as sketch an outline of the 
coast. Now and then I went down to the beach, following 
it for a mile or two at a time and sticking up on end any small pieces 
of driftwood found, the idea being that they would thus be more 
easily discoverable above the snow next winter should we have 
occasion to follow the coast by sled. 

The Admiralty chart proved rather inaccurate, as it had been 
made on the basis of observations from McClure's ship sailing 
along several miles from the land on its way north in 1851. Inves- 
tigations since made at my request by the Royal Geographical 
Society indicate that some of this map was based not on any survey 
or sketches made at the time, but on log book entries, narratives, or 
possibly even the memoirs of men who were on the journey. Noth- 
ing more than a very general correspondence between the facts and 
such a map can be expected 

There are several islands along the coast although only one, 
Terror Island, is shown on McClure's chart. On the map the coast- 
line is undulating, without deep bays or harbors; on the real land 
there are many deep bays and many harbors, if their entrances 
prove adequate when sounded. I am inclined to think, from the 
evidence of driftwood on the beach, that during the last short while, 
geologically speaking, the coast has been rising; but that before 
that there must have been a long period of considerable subsidence 
and there are, accordingly, long arms of the sea stretching inland 
through ''drowned" valleys. Relying on the map, we tried for the 
first few days to follow the coast pretty closely,, thinking there 



262 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

would be no deep bays or hindrances to travel, but we lost so much 
time this way that later we traveled on an average five miles away 
from the coast. Even then we would come occasionally to what we 
expected to be a creek, and which had all the winding characteristics 
of a creek, but was an arm of the sea reaching in some cases six 
or eight miles inland. 

About half-way to Cape Kellett I had a curious experience with 
a band of caribou. Each of several times I. got near them they were 
unaccountably scared away. This puzzled me, when the explana- 
tion appeared in a polar bear. I don't know exactly what he was 
doing. Part of the time he was probably following me, part of 
the time he may have been preparing to hunt caribou on his own 
account, and eventually he was fleeing from me after having got 
my wind. But in each case he succeeded equally in scaring the 
caribou. When I finally noticed the bear I tried to get him, but 
he was aware of me and made off without stopping. The caribou 
that time ran into my companions and the dogs, which excited the 
dogs to loud barking and scared them again. To make matters 
worse, Storkerson did not realize that I was following the caribou 
and started following them on his own account, which scared them 
once more. There was nothing to do now they were so thoroughly 
frightened but to wait for hours until they had not only run a 
distance of several miles but had had time to quiet down and 
more or less forget. 

They finally stopped on some rather flat land, and approaching 
them was a tedious matter, entailing a great deal of crawling and a 
great deal of waiting in strategic positions for them either to move 
closer to me or else to move over a hill so that I could resume my 
devious approach, for this was the last day of our dried meat and 
we had to get something to eat. I eventually shot four, after hav- 
ing used up nearly a whole day. This was more meat than we 
needed, but game had been so scarce on the way south that I 
thought it best to kill enough for a depot for the return journey. 
So we dug a hole in the ground, lined it with stones as usual, and 
filled it with meat that had first been properly chilled. 

Part of the land traversed in the last several days had been 
sandy, and "heather" does not grow well on sandy soil, or rather, 
what grows there does not burn well. But it is one of the compen- 
sations of the Arctic that the same sandy soil that makes the 
heather unsuited for fuel seems especially adapted to a certain kind 
of willow, the dead and bleaching roots of which we always found 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 263 

in these sandy districts in sufficient quantity for cooking. Once 
or twice we descended to the seacoast for our evening camp and 
were able to find driftwood. 

About the middle of the west coast of Banks Island the Ad- 
miralty chart indicates Terror Island, a conspicuous little island 
which we found in its proper latitude. But just north of it the 
chart shows a straight coast line, and here we found a great bay 
about fifteen miles across and running fifteen miles or more into the 
land. I have named it Storkerson Bay in honor of the man who 
did more than any other member of the expedition towards the 
success of its geographic work. 

South of Storkerson Bay the amount of driftwood on the coast 
increased rapidly and in one bay a little to the south there must 
have been several cords of wood to one mile of beach. This would 
be little for the mainland coast near the Mackenzie delta, where 
there are thousands of cords to the mile in some places, but it is 
more driftwood than we found anywhere else on Banks Island. 

Towards evening on September 10th I climbed a commanding 
hill and recognized that a few miles south lay the sandspit of Cape 
Kellett. Except for Point Barrow at the north tip of Alaska, 
this is the greatest sandspit known to me in the Arctic. It is 
shaped about like a fish-hook. It first runs four or five miles 
west from the southwest corner of the land proper and then it bends 
gradually northwest, north, northeast, east and southeast in a 
two-mile curve, forming what looks like a safe harbor, although it 
has an unsafe entrance because of shoals, is swept with currents 
carrying ice at certain seasons, and is not a safe harbor at all. 

The recognition of the indubitable outline of Cape Kellett was 
followed by a quarter of an hour of suspense while my glasses 
searched all the vicinity from the hilltop, first hastily for the pos- 
sible presence of a ship, and later minutely for a beacon or other 
sign that some one had been there who had an interest in us. 
Nothing could be seen that resembled any work of man. 

I felt truly depressed as I went about the erection of a beacon 
for the guidance of my companions who were four or five miles 
behind. It happened that on top of this hill there were some 
"nigger heads" scattered about, which, as we have explained, is the 
material used by Eskimos in building the foundations for their 
summer camps. Because that material was abundant, I erected 
in half an hour a beacon that could be seen with the naked eye from 
five or six miles. I left in it a note saying nothing about disap- 



264 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

pointment, for I knew my companions capable of inferring that for 
themselves. It said merely, "Make camp on the coast half a mile 
southwest of here." 

Then I walked east along a ridge of hills half a mile, for our 
meat supply was again beginning to run low and it was time to get 
another caribou, and I had further a vague plan of remaining at 
the Cape for three or four days. From the end of the ridge I had 
a view over a beautiful valley running eastward, with great 
stretches of flat bottom lands and rolling grassy hills on either side. 
On a hilltop eight or ten miles to the northeast were some caribou, 
too far away for present need but giving assurance that, should 
we decide to stay in the vicinity, we were likely to find food here 
no less than elsewhere. 

On my return to camp I found the gloom I had expected. We 
had all felt fairly certain of finding at least some beacon at Cape 
Kellett. There was the hope of our own ships. Also Mr. Mott 
of the Polar Bear had said to me that in the event of my ships dis- 
obeying orders and not coming to Banks Island, which he antici- 
pated more strongly than I through his association with the expe- 
dition during the winter, he would leave a depot for me at Kellett. 
We had even agreed what it was to be — one or two rifles with am- 
munition to fit, some kerosene with two or three blue-flame kero- 
sene stoves, a tent and possibly some clothes, and a little of some 
kind of food least likely to be destroyed by bears. The food part 
I had told him was of small importance, but I now felt keenly how 
convenient it would have been to find rifles, ammunition, oil, and 
the like. But the moral effect of the slightest evidence that we had 
not been forgotten would have been greater than the physical value 
of any supplies we could have found. 

It is scarcely possible for healthy men living in the open air 
to remain despondent long. After an hour or two of gloom I began 
to see various romantic possibilities in the situation and launched 
upon a sermon to my companions on the text that the most precious 
use of adversity is its stimulus. I pointed out that the greater 
the obstacle the greater the achievement, with various other plati- 
tudes I have now forgotten. While we lacked many things we could 
have made use of, we nevertheless had resources enough not only 
to pass the winter safely but to make an exploratory journey in the 
spring, if it were nothing more than to cross to Victoria Island 
and finish the mapping of it between the farthest points attained 
by the expeditions of McClure and of Amundsen. Thus we should 
accomplish useful geographic work and knock in the head; if we 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



265 



had not already done so, the idea that ships and supplies are needed 
to pass an arctic winter safely and comfortably. There would soon 
be on the ground plenty of snow for the building of clean and 
cozy houses, and we still had over 200 cartridges, which meant 
20,000 pounds of fat for fuel and meat for food. 

But Storkerson had a family on the mainland, and Ole had plans 
for a trading expedition involving the purchase of a ship and the 
acquiring of wealth on the coast of Siberia. While they agreed 
with me that we could pass the winter and continue the work in the 
spring, they did not agree with me that the game was worth the 
candle, and reminded me that I had promised them when we were 
out on the ice that if no ship came to Banks Island we would make 
our way to the mainland as soon as the winter frosts should bridge 
over the arms of the sea we had to cross, and as soon as the increas- 
ing daylight of spring allowed safe travel. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

WE DISCOVER THE MARY SACHS 

NEXT morning we decided to go down to the Cape itself and a 
few miles beyond it before giving up finally the hope of find- 
ing ship, beacon, or message. As usual, I started off ahead. 
When I had gone a mile and a half I saw in the soft mud on the bank 
of a little creek a nearly fresh human footprint. I had scarcely 
realized its meaning when my mind went back with some irony to 
the previous evening and to the moral value of the decision we had 
failed to make. Had we taken a bold concerted stand to continue 
for another year on the resources we had, we could have been proud 
ever after of a ''heroic" resolve, without having had the bother of 
carrying it out. For this footprint meant that somewhere in the 
vicinity resources of one kind or another were awaiting us. 

I was near enough to the camp to be able to wave a signal. 
And then I did not stop to write a note but merely raised a stone 
on end, for I knew the footprint itself would carry as much of a 
message to Storkerson and Ole as it did to me. To me it was one 
of the gladdest sights of my life. That it was the imprint of a 
heeled boot meant white men. Half a mile farther south 1 came 
upon a second track. This showed cross-hatching on the sole — the 
sort of rubber boot privately owned by some of the members of 
our scientific staff. This increased the probability that whoever 
had been here, it was one of our ships that brought him. At first 
I had thought it most likely to have been the Polar Bear party 
who had promised to come if our ships failed. 

Three miles farther on, where the sandspit of Cape Kellett joins 
the mainland proper, I found no signs though I looked carefully. 
"But a mile or more east along the coast," to quote verbatim from 
the diary for September 11th, "I got to the top of a hill from which 
I saw the tips of two masts. I could hardly believe my eyes — some- 
Jiow it seemed unnatural to find a ship in Banks Island where it 
ought to be." 

I ran forward, for the first thing that occurred to me was that 
the ship was at anchor and might start away. Half a mile of run- 

266 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 267 

ning brought me in full view of the beach, and to my surprise and 
consternation I recognized that there was the Sachs hauled up on 
the land, her cargo unloaded and a number of her men building a 
house. And now I walked slowly to get my breath back, puzzling 
what could have happened to the Star that she had not come and 
why the Sachs was on the land instead of afloat. Obviously, there 
had been no shipwreck. Everything was too trim and orderly 
for that. 

As I approached, the men at work glanced in my direction occa- 
sionally but were apparently not impressed with anything peculiar 
in my appearance. This I understood. It meant that some of the 
party were off hunting and that they imagined me to be one of 
their own people coming home. As I got nearer I recognized Jim 
Crawford carrying sod. From the time I was 200 yards from the 
camp till I was fifty yards from it. Captain Bernard was in full 
sight and glanced occasionally at me. Then he turned his back 
on me and walked slowly away towards the ship. I was no more 
than ten or fifteen yards from Crawford when he looked up for 
the third or fourth time and at last recognized that I was not 
one of his own party. I have forgotten what it was he had in his 
hands just then, but he dropped it. He has told me since that he 
first thought I was one of their own hunters. When he saw that 
I was not, his impression was a confused sort of astonishment, 
for he thought I must be an Eskimo and still he could not see what 
kind of Eskimo I could be. He had heard that the Victoria Island 
Eskimos were different from the Eskimos he knew in Alaska, but 
he had also seen specimens of the Victoria Island clothing and my 
clothes were of the Alaska type. Furthermore, he knew they had 
only bows and arrows, and I was carrying a gun. The contra- 
diction of everything he expected confused him hopelessly. It was 
not until I spoke to him and told him who I was that he recog- 
nized me. Even then he stood still and speechless in a daze. 

A few seconds later the company became as excited, however, 
as any one could have desired, for when Crawford finally realized 
who I was, he turned and shouted to Bernard: ''Stefansson is alive! 
He's here!" 

This announcement carried greater conviction to Bernard when 
pronounced by Crawford than my statement of who I was had 
carried to Crawford when pronounced by myself. The rest of the 
party were around me in a moment. But it naturally took some 
time before I for my part began to realize under what circum- 
stances they were there and before they had adjusted themselves 



268 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

to the fact of my presence. I had expected them to be more pleased 
than sm-prised when they recognized me, and certainly I had not 
expected the kind of surprise I found. I thought they had come 
there to mpet me and that they would be delighted once the meeting 
had taken place. On that theory I could not interpret their be- 
havior, although it was easily understandable when I realized that 
they had come there with no idea of my being alive at all but 
merely governed by a blind devotion to the orders of a man now 
dead. 

After a few words of explanation from me, indicating that 
Storkerson and Ole were coming behind, Crawford and Thomsen 
set out to meet them, while Bernard took me into a tent, insisting 
that I must eat. Somehow his first clear notion after he realized 
that I was alive was the assumption that I must be starving. I 
stopped him at that point and insisted on his looking closely at me 
and seeing for himself that I was fatter and in better condition 
than he had ever seen me before. He admitted it presently, but 
insisted that I must, nevertheless, be craving "good grub." The 
Captain was a great coffee drinker and could not understand how 
anybody could go months without coffee. Bread, too, he consid- 
ered a necessity of life, and fruits and various other articles of 
food he supposed to be by their nature such that no one could be 
healthy without them. He thought that any one deprived of these 
things for months would long for them with a craving indescrib- 
able. I tried to explain to the Captain that while I was hungry 
for news I had very little appetite for his food, but I soon found 
that it was easiest to accept a mug of coffee and some bread and 
butter and commence nibbling and sipping. My doing so put the 
Captain at his ease and he began to tell me the things I most 
wanted to know. 

He had hardly started when the one member of the company 
who had not been present at my arrival entered the door. This 
was my old friend, W. J. Baur, whom I had known since 1906 
under the name of "Levi," though he is no Hebrew by blood nor has 
he any trait supposed to be characteristically Jewish. I had seen 
Levi last when he had come from the Belvedere to bid us good-by 
when we started out on the ice from Martin Point, and here he 
was now steward of the Sachs and at the moment returned from a 
successful duck hunt, with a shotgun in one hand and two or three 
birds in the other. He was familiar with the "blond Eskimos;" in 
fact, he had wintered among them in 1908 on the second whaling 
ship to visit them, and that was two years before I saw them and 




Storker Storkerson. 



On Arrival at Kellett. 



Ole Andreasen. 




a 

o 






W o 
a *+-• 
o ^ 

w 

Eh 

O 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 269 

four years before they became the delight of newspaper readers. 
He has told me since that his first thought was that here was one 
of the blond Eskimos, but his second thought was that he'd be 
damned if he knew who or what I was. He was no farther along 
in his thinking process when Captain Bernard said, ''Don't you see 
it's the Commander?" 

It is seldom in real life that people ''register" astonishment or 
any other feeling in a way at all resembling the movies, but I have 
never seen nor can I imagine better movie acting than Levi's aston- 
ishment. He had already put the gun aside, otherwise he would 
have dropped it; but the ducks in his hand he actually dropped on 
the floor. After staring at me he almost collapsed upon a bench 
without saying a word. I have heard of people's eyes "sticking 
out of their heads" with fear or surprise. Without saying that 
Levi's actually did, I will say it seemed to me they did. 

There was a special reason for Levi's being rather more startled 
than the others. He had been on the expedition their guide and 
philosopher as to all northern things. He had been a whaler around 
Herschel Island and in various parts of the Arctic for twenty 
years and was looked up to by members of the Sachs party as wise 
beyond any of them. They all knew, each on his own account, 
that my companions and I must be dead ; but even at that, Levi had 
taken frequent occasion to explain and enlarge upon the certainty. 
He was in truth, as he said himself, an old friend of mine; but he 
had seen no reason why affection or any weakness should blind 
him to facts. In addition to explaining that it was not possible 
i we could ever have reached Banks Island alive, he had also ex- 
plained that we could not have lived there even had we been able 
to land. He had warned that it was "all storybook stuff" about 
any white man being able to live in the Arctic, and especially on 
Banks Island, without help from Eskimos. Even the Eskimos 
could not live on Banks Island, for had he not himself years before 
seen traces of them there and were they not absent now, and had 
they not always been absent when anybody came to the island? 
These Eskimos had come on a furtive visit from another island 
(Victoria Island) and had not stayed because the country was a 
difficult one even for them. 

Of course this was ordinary whaler lore, partly intuition and 
partly picked up from the Alaska Eskimos whom they carry in 
their crews ; but it amounted to a body of truth with Levi and the 
crew of the Sachs, with the partial exception of Wilkins, as we 
shall see later. But the broadest-minded scientist was never more 



270 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

willing to accept the verdict of facts against a theory than was 
Levi, so obviously glad was he to have been wrong at the price of 
finding us alive. 

The first thing I asked Captain Bernard for was a list of those 
who had come with the Sachs to Banks Island. They were George 
Wilkins, in command; Peter Bernard, sailing master; James R. 
Crawford, engineer; W. J. ("Levi") Baur, steward; Charles (really 
Karl) Thomsen; Natkusiak; Mrs. S. T. Storkerson with her daugh- 
ter Martina; and Mrs. Charles Thomsen with her daughter Annie. 
Martina was about five years old and Annie about three. 

When I found Levi here in place of Andre Norem, there flew 
to my mind Norem's fears for his own sanity and I asked about him. 
Bernard's reply was brief, I remember it almost word for word 
still: 'Toor Norem. He was a fine fellow. I had known him for 
years and so it was no credit to me that I believed him when he 
told me his mind was going. I could see the signs plainer than 
he could. But there were still one or two men left at Collinson 
Point who thought he was shamming, when one morning he shot 
himself in the alleyway outside our door and was dead before any 
one got to him." This was the first tragedy of our expedition 
to come to my ears. 

I now turned my inquiry to what had been an anxious burden on 
my mind. There was reassuring news of the Karluk. Some whal- 
ing ships had reached Herschel Island, the Captain said, before the 
Sachs left there and had reported that the Karluk was crushed by 
the ice sixty miles northeast of Wrangel Island in January, 1914, 
and that all of her men had made their way safely ashore in 
Wrangel Island; that Captain Bartlett had left them there and with 
one Eskimo companion had crossed the hundred miles of ice to 
the mainland of Siberia, had traveled along the coast from house 
to house until he met Baron Kleist, a Russian official, who had 
taken him to Emma Harbor, where Captain Theodore Pedersen * of 
the Herman had picked him up, carrying him to St. Michaels. From 
there the news was sent to the Government and to the press. The 
United States was said to have detailed two revenue cutters, the 
Bear and the Thetis, to pick the men up in Wrangel Island, and 
the Russian government two ice breakers, the Taimyr and the 
Vaigatch, for the same service. There seemed to be no doubt that 
while the ship was lost to our expedition, her company of men 
were safe. 

* Captain Pedersen is Theodore among his friends ; he is in this book some- 
times referred to by his legally correct name of C. T. Pedersen. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 271 

This piece of news set my mind at rest; the reported outcome 
was exactly according to my expectations. I had said in my re- 
ports to the Government that while the ship had no more than an 
even chance of surviving I did not see any reason to think that any 
of her men would be lost if she were crushed in the ice in winter and 
especially if she were crushed after the New Year, when the daylight 
was increasing and the conditions were ideal for getting ashore. 
The only thing that surprised me was that the men should have 
been left on Wrangel Island. It appeared to me that they should 
have walked ashore at the same time that Captain Bartlett did, 
for it is well known that that coast is thickly settled with people 
who have an abundance of native food in addition to stores of 
groceries brought in by traders and could care adequately for al- 
most any number of shipwrecked men that might arrive. A hun- 
dred miles over ordinary arctic sea ice is not far to walk. 

I have here given the news as reported to me by Captain Ber- 
nard, and the feeling I then had about the news. It was to develop 
later that the news itself was in part incorrect. 

I next asked why the Star had failed to come to Banks Island. 
To this Captain Bernard replied that everyone in Alaska, Eskimos, 
whalers and members of our expedition alike, had been sure of 
our death. He said Dr. Anderson had not taken him into his 
confidence, but he thought our supposed death might have been the 
reason why he had decided not to follow my instructions about the 
Star and had taken her himself to Coronation Gulf. I asked if 
Dr. Anderson had sent me any message on the chance of my being 
alive. He had not, nor any report or letter explaining why he 
had disobeyed my orders. 

So ended our dreams of the Star, of what she was to do for us 
and of what we might be able to do with her. With characteristic 
fondness for speculating over what might have been, I thought a 
good deal that day and I have thought a good deal since, of what 
we might have accomplished with her had she not been taken else- 
where. 

It seemed that in accordance with my instructions Wilkins had 
at first taken command of the Star, with Aarnout Castel as sailing 
master and himself as engineer. Wilkins had intended to bring 
me to Norway Island my former traveling companion, Natkusiak, 
and some other Eskimos, including at least one seamstress. The 
spring had been a fairly early one and the Star made her way suc- 
cessfully to Herschel Island. Here, as misfortune would have it, 
Wilkins made a decision, wise in itself, of waiting a few days till 



272 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the mail came down the Mackenzie River, so that he could carry 
the mail to Banks Island and especially so that he could secure the 
chronometer watches and other scientific equipment which I had 
asked the Government to send by way of the Mackenzie, expecting 
them to be picked up just as Wilkins was doing. But while he 
waited for the mail he incidentally waited so long that he was 
overtaken by the Alaska and Sachs coming from Collinson Point. 

Wilkins' point of view now was one with which, in spite of my 
great admiration for him in general, I never could agree. It 
seemed to me that as he had his orders from the commanding of- 
ficer direct he should have obeyed them irrespective of countermand- 
ing orders from any officer of inferior rank. The theory he acted 
on was that my death had removed me from the situation and that 
Dr. Anderson was the actual commander and his orders should take 
precedence, mine being as it were canceled by an assumption of my 
death. Dr. Anderson now told Wilkins that he had decided not to 
let the Star go to the Norway Island rendezvous but would take her 
to Coronation Gulf instead. For reasons which he gave, he would 
transfer Wilkins to the Sachs. 

The reason for the transfer had been the assertion that the Sachs 
was better for sending to Banks Island because she was the bigger 
ship. This was canceling my judgment as well as my orders, for 
if I had thought so I should have arranged it that way. The sup- 
position that the Sachs was better than the Star was tenable only 
if the chances of meeting ice were ignored, and obviously the 
chances of meeting ice around Banks Island were much greater 
than of meeting it in the direction towards Coronation Gulf. The 
reader will recall how the Star was purchased especially for the 
Banks Island trip, and how the Sachs, through her twin propellers, 
was particularly badly suited to those more northerly and icy 
waters. 

Wilkins had transferred to the Sachs, taking Natkusiak with 
him, and the Sachs had come to Banks Island. But on the way 
one of her propellers struck a cake of ice, as was to be expected, and 
was broken off. She had also been insufficiently caulked before 
leaving winter quarters and was leaking heavily. When she got 
to Kellett she found considerable ice along the sandspit and Wilkins 
decided to haul her ashore in the last week of August for the fol- 
lowing reasons: 

First, she was leaking so fast that she had to be pumped forty 
minutes out of every hour ; second, she was under one propeller and 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 273 

hence very difficult to maneuver, and her speed had been cut to 
two miles per hour as against six; and third, it was not believed that 
I was alive. Even under this last head Wilkins had been prepared 
to go ahead to Norway Island had the ocean been open, be I alive 
or dead; but in view of the disabilities of the ship and in view of 
the ice at Cape Kellett, the consideration that he did not expect to 
find me alive, anyway, weighed heavily with him. There was also 
the pressure exerted by the opinions of the crew. Levi had explained 
that any ship going north beyond Kellett would be in grave danger 
of being unable to get out of the country again the following year, 
and as they were provisioned for one year only and had orders from 
Dr. Anderson to stay but one year, they considered it unwise to 
go on. 

But at Kellett they knew of no harbor in which a ship would be 
safe, although we have since found a good one for a boat of her 
draught two or three miles east of where she was actually hauled 
out. Not knowing of this harbor, they saw no way to keep her 
safe except to haul her out on the beach. They accordingly un- 
loaded her, put her broadside against the land, got out their ropes 
and tackle and hauled her up. There she was when I found her, 
rather a house than a ship, for it was impossible to launch her with- 
out beams to slide her back into the water. These beams she did 
not have and they could not be obtained on Banks Island. 

A tale of minor importance told by Captain Bernard was that 
Peder Pedersen, whom I had engaged as engineer for the launch 
Edna, had been unable to run her during the summer and that this 
had greatly handicapped Chipman in his survey work of the 
Mackenzie Delta. Chipman, failing to get any use of the launch, 
had carried on his work as best he could with a whale boat and 
had, after the delta survey had come to an end, towed the Edna 
behind the whale boat to Herschel Island. Here she met the com- 
petent engineers of our ships, Jim Crawford of the Sachs, and 
Daniel Blue of the Alaska, who in two or three hours put her into 
good shape. Dr. Anderson, having decided to take the Star to 
Coronation Gulf, gave the Edna to Wilkins who, not knowing 
Banks Island conditions, thought she would be worth taking along. 
Where the Edna could have been valuable was in the eastern work 
she had been bought for, although the Star was of course better. 
Coronation Gulf is free from ice most summers and is full of islands, 
an ideal place for a power launch. But in Banks Island there is 
so much ice on the west coast that only under rare circumstances 



274 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

can a launch be useful ; and while it might be well enough to carry- 
such a boat on a big ship where she could be hoisted in davits, she 
was nothing but a white elephant to the Sachs, which was too small 
to handle her comfortably on deck. The Edna had been towed part 
of the way and nearly wrecked by ice; then with the greatest dif- 
ficulty they had managed to lift her up on the decks of the Sachs. 

We might have made some use now of the Edna if she had been 
in seaworthy condition. I put Crawford at fixing her up, but it was 
eight or ten days before she was ready for use. By that time 
the frosts had set in and the season of navigation was over. 

Two new chronometer watches had been sent to me by the 
Government down the Mackenzie and had arrived before the Sachs 
sailed. One of these had been taken for O'Neill to replace the 
watch he had turned over to me, but Wilkins had been given the 
other, so we now had two good pocket chronometers. A battery 
of three Waltham ship's chronometers, really huge watches mounted 
in gimbals, had also been given the Sachs, and various small items 
of scientific equipment from the Alaska. 

But there were three exceedingly serious gaps in our equipment. 

A special feature of our ice exploration was the large water- 
proof tarpaulin used to convert our sleds into boats. Of the two 
the expedition possessed we had already used one for the trip from 
Martin Point to Banks Island, and it was nearly worn out. The 
other I had expected would be brought by the Star. It had been 
taken to Coronation Gulf to be used for spreading over stores to 
keep the rain out. 

The specially strong sled which we had lost with Wilkins and 
Castel had also been taken to Coronation Gulf. Lighter sledges 
of the sort best suited to work on or near land had been sent us 
instead. 

Why the tarpaulin and the sled had not been sent us I under- 
stood in a measure, though not fully. What I never understood was 
that the Alaska had miles of sounding wire and sent us none of it. 
This was truly heartbreaking. We should have to make our ocean 
exploration next spring over depths inevitably beyond the reach 
of our 1386 metre line, and thus our journey would be robbed of half 
its scientific value. 

An answer to all these things would be: "We thought Stefansson 
was dead, and expected Wilkins to confine his activities to the 
shores of Banks Island where the boat tarpaulin, the strong sled, 
and the sounding wire would be needed no more than by us in 
Coronation Gulf." 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC ^ 275 

Apart from the relief of being told of the safety of the Karluk's 
men, it was rather depressing news the Sachs had brought us. Evi- 
dently our task of exploring the ocean to the west and north of 
Prince Patrick Island was going to be difficult, both because of 
the gaps in our equipment and because of the too southerly base 
at Kellett. 

But to this cloud there was the silver lining that the southern 
section of the expedition was, so far as I could judge from the news, 
in an excellent position to do good work. I hoped so then, and later 
events fully justified the hope. The competent specialists of that 
section secured during the next two years a fund of information 
and a mass of specimens such that had we achieved no other scien- 
tific results than those gathered by the complement of the Alaska, 
the expedition could be considered to have added materially to the 
sum of knowledge.* 

While I have mentioned both Wilkins and Natkusiak, I have 
said nothing about meeting them. This is because they were not 
at home when I arrived, but were the hunters who were away and 
for one of whom I was mistaken when I was seen coming down the 
hillside towards the camp. They had gone to the northeast looking 
for caribou two or three days before. We planned to send some- 
body in the morning to look for them and bring them back. Mean- 
time Wilkins had got track of us. on his own account, a story that 
I am enabled to let him tell for himself, since he has written a 
magazine article on the incident from which I may quote. After 
telling how the Sachs was forced to decide against trying to get 
north beyond Cape Kellett and how they first landed there, he 
goes on: 

''We saw no trace of game on the land, and finding no trace of 
Stefansson we were fully convinced that even had he reached the 
land he must have starved to death. After waiting in vain for 
the ice to move we decided to establish winter quarters and search 
the coast for his dead body or possible traces of him, when condi- 
tions would permit sledge travel. There was not sufficient snow on 
the ground to travel along the coast, so with an Eskimo companion 
who had been with Stefansson on most of his arctic journeys I went 
inland afoot. We hunted for two daj^s without success and at 
night we discussed our leader's fate. 

"There were many reasons why he could not be alive. He had 
not come ashore in Alaska. We thought he could not get food 

* For a summary of the scientific results of the Alaska section, see Ap- 
pendix. 



276 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

on the ice; he could not travel to Banks Island against the wind 
and drift, and even if he had reached Banks Island, he must surely 
have starved to death. Natkusiak, the Eskimo, explained that 
Stefansson had recently developed many unusual ideas. When he 
first knew him he was like the other white men, but lately Stef- 
ansson had been getting so he wanted to do many things that other 
white men never did. All the Eskimos knew that a man cannot go 
far out on the sea ice and live, and now Stefansson's death had 
proved it. He thought that it would be the last time, as it was 
the first, that any one would try to do anything so foolish. We 
went to bed mourning the loss of our leader, but feeling that we 
had always known that he would not succeed. 

"The third morning we started out early, determined to stay 
out all day and all night in a final effort to find some game. I 
walked a mile or two from our camp, and then from a hilltop I 
saw a beacon in the distance that I had not noticed the day before. 
I examined it with my glasses and thought as it was near the coast 
that it might be an old one erected by somebody from a passing 
whaling ship. But I was almost sure it had not been there the 
day before. Then came the thought, 'Perhaps it's one that Stef- 
ansson has just erected!' and I hurried towards it. I found myself 
running as my hopes grew stronger. As I neared the beacon I 
could see that it was a new one built of sod. Could it be that 
Stefansson and his party were alive? I reached the place almost 
breathless and found a tiny note in Stefansson's handwriting. He 
and at least one of his companions were alive ! 

" ' Make camp on the beach a quarter of a mile S. W. from here' 
was all that was written on the note. But that was enough to tell 
me that they were alive and traveling in the direction of our 
boat. I hurried back to my camp, but meantime the Eskimo had 
gone hunting. I could not go home without him, so I waited all day 
and half the night. He at last returned, having been successful 
in killing several caribou and a polar bear. 

"We made all haste to the main camp, discussing on the way 
the probable condition in which we should find the men. We 
thought of them as worn and haggard, starving and struggling on 
toward the camp with one last effort. In fact, I thought of them 
in every condition of which I had read of heroic explorers in story- 
books. We reached the hut at four o'clock in the morning and I 
tiptoed round the sleeping quarters, not daring to wake them for 
fear they needed rest. Stefansson's two companions, Storker 
Storkerson and Ole Andreasen, were fast asleep in the bunks and 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 277 

were snoring roundly, but Stefansson had occupied my tent. I 
peeped in and saw him sleeping. In the dim light I could not 
judge the men's condition and decided to look at their dogs. These 
were fat and frisky and the whole six that left Alaska were there. 
I was amazed, yet not prepared for the sight of the men when the 
cook's breakfast shout brought them to the kitchen. All of them 
were fat and strong, stouter, in fact, than when we last saw them. 
They had with them when they left Alaska only a month's supply 
of food, and now five months had elapsed and they were pictures 
of health and strength. They told no tale of hardship, hunger, or 
adventure. We were almost disappointed. They had traveled 
eastward over the ice, shooting bears or seals when they had need 
for food, and had made the journey of over a thousand miles, living 
on the local food supply, and had never missed a meal! They had 
in fact completed, so far, the plans of the expedition almost in 
detail. 

"So this was the end of the enterprise which for months I had 
heard condemned or deplored by Eskimos and whalers and the 
men of arctic experience in our expedition as 'one crazy and two 
deluded men going north over the sea ice to commit suicide!' " 



CHAPTER XXVIl 

THE AUTUMN HUNT IN BANKS ISLAND, 1914 



TT^V OUBTLESS the average man turns to polar narratives, 
I I when he turns to them at all, with the desire and expecta- 
^ ^ tion of reading about suffering, heroic perseverance against 
formidable odds, and tragedy either actual or narrowly averted. 
Perhaps, then, it is partly the law of supply and demand that 
accounts for the general tenor of arctic books. However that may 
be, my main interest in the story I am telling is to "get across" to 
the reader the idea that if you are of ordinary health and strength, 
if you are young enough to be adaptable and independent enough 
to shake off the influence of books and belief, you can find good 
reason to be as content and comfortable in the North as anywhere 
on earth. An example to me is the fall of 1914, to which I fre- 
quently look back as a time I wish I might live over again. 

To begin with, we had that all-important thing, an object for 
which to work. The >Sac/is had brought the news that the Karluk 
had been wrecked near Wrangel Island, that the main resources 
of our expedition had sunk or had been diverted beyond our reach. 
But it was up to us to make good in spite of that. I confess the 
idea of a large expedition had had in it for me less of challenge 
than the new conditions imposed. When you have under you many 
officials and more subordinates of a lower rank, it is with a com- 
mander largely a case of issuing orders, an easy but uninteresting 
way of bringing anything about. Now, with most of our best men 
and resources gone, it had become a matter of individual prowess. 
We had to show that by adapting ourselves unaided to local con- 
ditions a few could do the work of many. 

The first point was that, although the Sachs had brought a 
certain amount of food, this wouldn't have been enough even for 
one winter if men and dogs had subsisted entirely on the cargo. 
Furthermore, as polar expeditions have proved from the earliest 
times down to Scott, living on ship's food brings danger of scurvy. 
We did not have dozens of competent and locally familiar Eskimo 
hunters as Peary did to send out here and there for meat of walrus 

278 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 279 

or cattle or caribou, but only one Eskimo hunter, Natkusiak. And 
walrus and cattle are absent from Banks Island and its vicinity. 

That the native resources here were less than are commonly 
found in the North made the task all the more absorbing. It was 
a question of caribou and seals, and the seals we left to the mid- 
winter. This for two reasons: first, you can kill seals under favor- 
able circumstances even in the twilight of winter when the sun 
never rises, but for caribou, where the field-glasses are as important 
as the rifle, daylight is necessary for any considerable success; and 
second, to us who have lived long in the North the lean caribou of 
midwinter and spring are only a food and not a very satisfactory 
one at that; but the fat caribou of the autumn are a delicacy. 

Wilkins, Natkusiak, and I commenced the hunt at once by 
traveling three days northeasterly from our base at Kellett. It was 
snowing hard most of the time. We could not see more than a mile 
or two, and all caribou tracks were naturally buried. It is an 
idiosyncrasy with me, or possibly a matter of pride, that however 
abundant the food supply is in the camp from which we start upon 
a hunt, we seldom carry more than two or three days' provisions. 
We have never yet failed to get some game before the fund was 
gone, and it is generally good policy, for one travels more rapidly, 
hunts more energetically and feels a greater reward in his success 
when he knows that it is a matter of getting game or going hungry. 
It need not be imagined either, that the method is dangerous, for 
no one who has tried fasting can be induced to fear four or five 
days without food. You get no hungrier after the afternoon of the 
first day, and any traveler who complains about going three or 
four days without food will get scant sympathy from me. Having 
three days' provisions in the sled means that your party is good 
for at least ten days, before which time something is sure to 
turn up. 

Darkness was coming on rapidly and we had to . make our 
harvest in its season. The caribou were getting leaner and their 
meat less desirable. On the fourth day I asked Wilkins, then least 
experienced of the three of us, although he later became a first- 
class hunter, to stay and guard the camp while Natkusiak and I 
struck off in different directions through a fairly thick blizzard. 
The visibility of caribou in that sort of storm was under four 
hundred yards, but there is this compensatory advantage in a 
blizzard, that by real watchfulness you are practically certain to 
see caribou before they see you, and at a range where you can 
begin shooting at once. Furthermore, the wind drowns any noise 



280 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

you may make and the storm itself seems to make the animals 
less watchful. While you have a small chance of finding caribou 
at all, yet if you do run into them you have a good chance of 
getting them. 

We were in a country which none of us had previously seen, 
and there were no river-courses or landmarks that could be thought- 
lessly followed with the assurance that you could with equal 
thoughtlessness follow them back again. In thick weather it is 
a matter of the closest observation and the most careful reckoning 
to find your way home to camp. As you advance you must notice 
the speed at which you are walking and the time it takes to proceed 
in any given direction, and must know exactly at what angle to 
the wind you are traveling. Furthermore, you must check the wind 
occasionally, either by pocket compass or by a snowdrift on the 
ground, to see that it isn't changing, for an unnoticed change in 
the wind would throw any reckoning completely out of gear. The 
method is first to walk around the hill — our hunting-camps are 
commonly on high hilltops — and study each face of it until you feel 
sure that if you strike any point within half a mile of camp you 
will recognize it on the return. When the topography of the half- 
mile square or so surrounding camp has been memorized, you strike 
out perhaps into the wind or perhaps at an angle of forty-five or 
ninety degrees to it, and travel straight for an hour or two hours, 
according to the degree of confidence you have in your ability to get 
back. If no game has been found, you turn at some known angle, 
commonly a right angle, to your original course and walk in that 
direction an estimated distance, perhaps as far as in the first direc- 
tion. If then nothing has been found you turn again, and if this 
time also you make a right-angle turn, it is easy to calculate at 
what time you are opposite camp and one hour or two hours' walk 
away from it. Turning a third right angle will face you directly 
for camp, and if you have been careful you will land within half a 
mile of your mark, or within the area memorized before starting. 
But should you miss it you will know at any rate at what time you 
are close to camp, and by thinking the matter out you will see how 
to walk around in circles or squares of continually increasing size 
until you find a place you recognize. 

If in the course of your walk you do see game, your first thought 
must be to take the time by the watch, or make some similar ob- 
servation to assure yourself at that moment of the direction of your 
camp. If you can kill the game at that spot the matter is simple, 





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THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 281 

but if you have to follow about a good deal, or if it is a trail you 
come upon rather than the game itself and you follow the trail, 
then it is not so easy to lay down the rules for getting back. 
Everything can, however, be summarized by saying that you must 
continually memorize your course; and if you do this it is a matter 
of angles to determine the course you must eventually take when 
you start for home. 

This simple outline of our procedure in a storm, and in fact at 
all other times when direct vision will not serve, will show at once 
why it is that a white man of trained mind can find his way home 
so frequently where an Eskimo gets lost and has to camp and wait 
for clear weather. 

In the hunt under discussion I walked about three miles into the 
wind, then three miles to one side and back to camp without seeing 
any sign of game. But Natkusiak had better luck. Within two 
or three hours we knew that this must be so, otherwise he would 
have been back; and sure enough, just as daylight was disappear- 
ing he returned with an account of seeing about thirty caribou and 
killing and skinning seventeen. Wolves were very numerous at 
this time and we frequently saw them in bands of ten or less, and 
our first concern was to get the meat of these deer home. By the 
next evening we had more than three-quarters of it safe, although 
the wolves did get some. When the meat had been gathered, 
Natkusiak and I again hunted but in clearer weather. This time 
the luck was reversed; he got no deer, while I secured an entire 
band of twenty-three in twenty-seven shots. 

It must not be supposed that killing twenty-three caribou in 
twenty-seven shots is remarkable. This will appear when you see 
how it was done. To begin with, my powerful field-glasses sighted 
the band at seven or eight miles. I advanced to within about a 
mile of them, climbed a hill much higher than the rest of the coun- 
try, and used half an hour memorizing the topography. There 
were various small hills and hollows and creek-beds here and there, 
with branches in varied directions. All this could be studied from 
the elevation. The main difficulty was to remember the important 
details after you had descended into the lower country, where 
everything on closer view looked different. The wind was fairly 
steady and I made the approach from leeward. But I found when 
I got within half a mile of the deer that they had moved to the 
top of a ridge and were feeding along the top about sidewise to the 
wind. There was no cover by which they could be directly ap- 



282 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

preached, so I went to the ridge about half a mile from them and 
lay down to wait. They grazed in my direction very slowly for 
half an hour or so, and then lay down and rested an hour and a 
half or more. Meantime I had nothing to do but wait. If, when 
they got through resting, they had decided either to descend from 
the ridge or reverse their course and graze back to where they 
came from, I should have had to make another detour and start the 
hunt over again. But they grazed toward me, and in another 
hour every one of the twenty-three was within two hundred yards 
and some of them within fifty yards. Caribou and other wild 
animals commonly fail to recognize danger in anything that is 
motionless, so long as they are not able to smell it. They saw me 
plainly, of course, just as they saw all the rest of the scenery, but 
their intelligence was not equal to realizing that I was something 
quite different. 

About this season, when the lakes are freezing all around, the 
lake ice and even the ground itself keeps cracking with a loud, 
explosive noise, so caribou frequently seem to take rifle-shots for 
the cracking of ice and are not disturbed. I took pains to see 
that my first shots especially should be of the right kind. What 
you must guard against especially is a wound through or near the 
heart, for an animal shot that way will startle the herd by making 
a sprint of fifty to two hundred yards at top speed and then drop- 
ping, turning a somersault in falling. But he will always run in 
the direction he is facing when shot, so that you can control his 
movements by waiting to shoot until he is facing in a suitable direc- 
tion. When an animal is frightened he will run toward the middle 
of the band, and if he is already there he will probably not run at 
all, at least for the moment. But caribou shot through the body 
back of the diaphragm will usually stand still where they are, or, 
after running half a dozen yards, lie down as if naturally. I there- 
fore now did the thing that may seem cruel, but which is necessary 
in our work; I shot two or three animals through the body, and 
they lay down quietly. The shots had attracted the attention of 
the herd but, sounding like ice cracking, had not frightened them. 
Furthermore, the sight of an animal lying down is conclusive with 
caribou and allays their fear from almost any source. I then 
moved my rifle so slowly that the movement was unnoticed, and 
brought it to bear on the next one, holding it so near the ground 
that the working of the bolt in reloading was equally not noticed. 
After the first animals had lain down I shot two or three that were 
near instantly dead with neck shots, and then began to aim for 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 283 

the hearts of those farthest away, so that any if they ran, would 
run towards me. The calves were left till the last. 

The very deliberation with which this sort of hunting is done, 
while it makes conspicuous the element of apparent cruelty, makes 
it the least cruel method possible in point of the pain caused the 
animals. A number of hunters greatly excited and blazing ajway 
in the manner of those inexperienced or afflicted with "buck fever," 
will mean all sorts of painful wounds that are not fatal and that 
may be borne for days or weeks by animals that escape. The most 
cruel of wounds to caribou is a broken leg, for there is no hope 
of recovery, and yet they can escape for the time being. I have 
on two or three occasions had a chance to study these animals 
afterward. They appear to realize that their speed, now that they 
have only three legs to run on, is inferior to the rest of the herd, 
and they are in evident and continual dread of the wolves that 
are sure to drag them down unless a hunter's bullet mercifully 
intervenes. In a properly conducted hunt by such a method as ours 
a wounded animal hardly ever escapes, and with our powerful 
rifles even a shot through the abdominal cavity will ensure death 
in five minutes to half an hour. 

The reason for killing entire bands of caribou is conservation 
and convenience. If you kill them in scattered places the freight- 
ing problem becomes serious, and especially the matter of protec- 
tion of the meat from wolves. But with a big kill you can camp 
by the meat and see that none of it gets lost. Furthermore, in 
islands like Banks Island, caribou are so scarce that in the ordi- 
nary fall hunts in order to get enough meat we have to kill 75 
per cent, or more of all animals seen. In the fall of 1914 we 
had only two or three weeks of reasonably good daylight in which 
to get meat for all winter. For when the daylight comes again 
in the spring we are not only busy with exploratory work, but also 
the meat is lean and neither as nutritious nor half as palatable as if 
fall-killed. 

Any one who sees charm in the life of a hunter or life in the 
open will need no argument to convince him that the lives of 
arctic hunters are interesting, but he may think they are uncom- 
fortable enough for that to be a serious drawback. This is by 
no means the case, thanks to the cozy dwellings in which we spend 
our nights and excessively stormy days and any periods that are 
idle through necessity or choice. 

A snow house that is essentially as comfortable as a room of 
the same size in an ordinary dwelling-house can be put up in fifty 



284 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

minutes or an hour by the method already described. They are 
spotlessly clean, beautifully white; they protect you so perfectly 
from the weather that you actually have to go outdoors to find 
out if it is good or bad. You are warm enough, as I have said, 
to sit in your shirt sleeves and as comfortable as can be. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

MIDWINTER TRAVEL AND ITS DIFFICULTIES 

LIKE all of our arctic winters, the winter of 1914-15 was spent 
in getting ready for the exploratory work of the coming 
spring. Captain Bernard occupied most of his time making 
sledges. Much of the material was obtained by stripping the ship of 
her ''ginger work^' to secure the hardwood and iron. Our pemmican 
had gone with the Karluk, and our steward, Baur, and others spent 
many hours slicing and drying beside the galley stove the meat of 
polar bears, seals, and caribou which the rest of us killed either at 
sea or on shore and brought to camp. The Sachs had not brought us 
much fuel, so that one or two men had to busy themselves con- 
tinually in searching up and down the coast, under the snow, for 
pieces of driftwood and hauling these home, sometimes a distance 
of fifteen miles. 

A special windfall was the discovery of a whale carcass on the 
beach about ten or twelve miles southeast of winter quarters. 
One afternoon Natkusiak and I were going down that way with 
a dog team, traveling about half a mile from the land through a 
moderately thick snowstorm. We were starting out on an extended 
trip meaning to be gone several days if not weeks, and we were ap- 
proaching land for the purpose of finding deeper snow for making 
camp. We were nearing the beach and it was already so dark that 
rifle sights could no longer be seen for good shooting when a band 
of nine wolves made rapidly toward us. One's first thought must 
always be to look after the dog team, and as I was walking ahead 
I took hold of the leading dog, telling Natkusiak to upset the sled 
and thus prevent the team from dragging it when the wolves and 
the shooting got them excited. Natkusiak stepped to one side, 
kneeling on one knee and waiting for the wolves to come as close 
as they would. At about fifty yards they drew up sharp when 
the dogs began yelping with excitement, and Natkusiak fired at 
one of the two large wolves — there were evidently the parents and 
seven nearly grown pups. They immediately broke and ran, Natku- 
siak firing several times after them — we were now near a ship's 

285 



286 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

stores, so ordinary rules of ammunition economy did not apply. 
Shooting with a rifle in half darkness must always be a matter of 
chance and the wolves escaped, though one left a trail of blood, 
perhaps the one originally fired at. 

We now proceeded with both of us holding the harness of the 
greatly excited dogs, and about a quarter of a mile from a creek 
mouth where we expected to find good camping snow, a bear 
walked out from shore and lay down near a big cake of ice about 
two hundred yards from the land. Natkusiak turned the sled 
over on its side again and went after the bear while I restrained 
the dogs. I had seen one bear on top of a forty-foot cutbank 
and another at the foot of it about half a mile away, but I could 
not leave the team until Natkusiak had killed his bear. One shot 
did it and then I righted the sled and let the dogs make their own 
way to Natkusiak awaiting them beside the bear, while I turned 
aside to follow the ones I had seen on the land. Meantime three 
other bears came scampering from the shore, going past Natkusiak 
about three hundred yards away. He fired a dozen shots but 
missed on account of the darkness. As the bears were running over 
the ice I could see their outlines only faintly and could not see their 
legs at all. This meant that although Natkusiak was only about 
half as far from them as I he had no good chance for aiming, as he 
only caught glimpses of them as they appeared and disappeared 
between the hummocks. I followed on the land for a little way, 
but the snowstorm thickened and the pursuit turned hopeless. 

Of course we realized that some special local thing had at- 
tracted the bears and wolves, and that it could scarcely be any- 
thing but a whale carcass. We built our snowhouse right by the 
dead bear, while foxes, white and ghostlike in the half dark, cir- 
cled around inspecting us. We must have seen dozens, and had 
there been bright daylight we should probably have seen a hun- 
dred. That evening we merely skinned the bear, waiting for day- 
light to look for the whale. 

It was not difficult to find it. About two hundred yards from 
the camp the snow was thick with fox tracks and there were dozens 
of holes where they had been burrowing through a snowdrift down 
to the carcass. Some of the foxes ran away when we approached, 
but others stood their ground at a distance and a few barked at us. 
We could have shot them but preferred not to injure their value 
as scientific specimens or as furs. 

Natkusiak was in his element. Although we had been just set- 
ting out on what was intended for a long journey I changed the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 287 

plans, leaving him by the carcass to watch for bears while I re- 
turned to the ship with a load of bear meat and the news of our 
find. That evening Thomsen went to the whale with a dog team 
and twenty or thirty fox traps to spend the night with Natkusiak. 
They divided the traps between them and set them one lot at 
each end of the carcass. At first they caught the foxes at the rate 
of eight or ten an hour, and sat up nearly all night at the work of 
skinning. 

This whale proved of the greatest usefulness. Not only did we 
get a dozen or more bears in connection with it, but it furnished 
excellent dog feed that year and even the year following, for 
decay of a whale carcass lying in such a position is exceedingly 
slow. It was half buried in sand, but in summer continually bathed 
with sea water. As the temperature of the polar sea is actually 
below the freezing point of fresh water (often as much as 2° F. 
below freezing) it was not strange that decay should not be rapid, 
especially when one remembers that the sea water is happily im- 
pregnated with common salt and other chemicals that are bac- 
tericidal in nature and of well known efficacy in preserving meat. 

With this work going on, Natkusiak and I nevertheless found 
time for an exploratory crossing of the south end of Banks Island. 
Since we made this in the darkness of midwinter, first-class ge- 
ographic results were not to be expected. Our main purpose was, 
in fact, to pay a visit to the Eskimos whom we supposed to be 
wintering on the southeast corner of the island. The supposition 
that we should find them there was based on the verbal statements 
of these Eskimos themselves when in the spring of 1911 I had 
met them on their return from Banks Island on the ice of Prince 
Albert Sound.* Eskimos may be as truthful as any people, and 
they are; nevertheless, they give wrong impressions even to one 
another and to those most conversant with them because of their 
fatal lack of exact words for time and distance. Although the 
Mackenzie River Eskimos, for instance, have numerals and can 
count up to four hundred (twenty twenties) those of Victoria 
Island, Coronation Gulf, and vicinity (the Copper Eskimos) cannot 
count above six. They have to describe distances by such indefinite 
terms as '^not far" or "very far," and with regard to time their 
vocabulary is almost equally vague. We now know that the por- 
tion of the winter spent by them on the southeast corner of Banks 
Island is not January, but March and April. 

But not knowing it then, we devoted much of December to a 

*See "My Life With the Eskimo," p. 281. 



288 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

hazardous crossing of the mountains back of Nelson Head. The 
danger is not in the mountains themselves, although precipices are 
frequent, but in the darkness which makes every precipice treach- 
erous. Because of the elevation of the land to perhaps fifteen 
hundred or two thousand feet, and because of the open water which 
prevails most winters around the south end of the island, every 
breath of wind that blows off the sea is converted into a cloud of 
fog when it strikes the colder hills. The daylight is negligible; 
and the moonlight, which comes to you first through clouds that 
are high in the sky and later through an enveloping fog, is a 
light which enables you to see your dog-team distinctly enough, 
or even a black rock a hundred yards away, but is scarcely better 
than no light at all upon the snow at your feet. So far as the 
eyes can tell, you never know whether you are going to step on 
a bank of snow or into an abyss. 

Walking ahead of the team I used to carry a pair of large, 
dark-colored deerskin mittens. After throwing one of them about 
ten yards ahead, I would keep my eyes on it till I got within three 
or four yards and then throw the other, so that most of the time 
I could see the two black spots on the snow ahead of me separated 
by five or six yards of whiteness. But in falling snow or in a 
blizzard we used to remain in camp, sometimes two or three days 
at a time, unless we happened to. be following a valley where, 
without great danger of falling, we were merely inconvenienced by 
walking now and then against the face of a cliff. 

Although the south end of Banks Island where we crossed it 
was no more than fifty miles in diameter, we traveled in twilight 
and darkness through labyrinths of valleys behveen haphazard 
mountain ridges double that distance between December 22nd and 
January 4th, when we reached the sea ice of De Salis Bay. In 
another five days we had examined the whole southeast coast of 
the island and had crossed Prince of Wales Straits to Victoria 
Island without discovering any signs of human beings. This is the 
one time of the year when traveling is dangerous if you rely upon 
game for food and fuel. The game is there, of course, no less than 
at other seasons, but the darkness is the handicap in securing it. 
We found the ice in the vicinity of Victoria Island not to be in 
motion, and as there consequently was no open water the chance 
of getting bears was less than elsewhere. Seals could be secured 
only through the tedious method of having the dogs discover breath- 
ing-holes and then waiting for the seals to come up, a method 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 289 

where the element of chance plays such a part that no one should 
use it where another method is available. 

So instead of stopping to hunt in Victoria Island when our 
food-supplies began to run low, we turned back to Banks Island 
toward open water observed on the way along the coast east from 
De Salis Bay. One reason why supplies began to run low was 
that we had taken but little food with us from camp, even though 
we realized that midwinter darkness was going to make hunting 
precarious. It was imperative to travel light if we were to cross 
a range of mountains, climb steep ridges and make precipitous 
descents into valleys, in daylight insufficient for the selection of 
better courses. A light sled could be managed; a loaded one could 
not be moved by the combined strength of men and dogs. I had 
also felt certain of finding the Eskimos who would have had stores 
of food from which to supply us. 

When we turned back from Victoria Island I had no immediate 
intention of giving up the search after Eskimos, but expected 
merely to replenish food stores at De Salis Bay. January 12th 
was our first day of hunting. A clear day at noon, it gave day- 
light enough to see the sights of the rifles for about two hours, al- 
though not clearly enough for good shooting. It is never really 
safe to leave a camp unguarded, with the dogs subject to attacks 
of wolves and bears, but we took the chance, and went in dif- 
ferent directions to search for game, I to find none, Natkusiak 
to kill one seal. 

For three days after that both of us continued to be unsuc- 
cessful in our hunting. Both of us killed seals, but the ice was 
moving so rapidly that before we could secure them they had been 
buried under crushing heaps. Tracks of polar bears were numer- 
ous, and it was only a question of time when one would be en- 
countered. On the fourth day I had just killed a seal and secured 
it when over my shoulder I saw three bears approaching. It was 
past the twilight noon and their yellowish-white outlines against 
the pure white ice were "so indistinct that they could not be seen 
except when they were moving, or at least their bodies could not, 
except for the shiny black noses. When bears are on the alert 
and when they either see something indistinctly or are expecting to 
see something the presence of which they suspect, they move their 
necks and their whole bodies to peer about in a peculiar snaky 
way. Then they give about the effect of railway men's signal lights 
that are being swung on a dark night. These particular bears 



290 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

made themselves conspicuous now and then by standing on their 
hind legs, which brought their profiles against the sky. My first 
two shots brought down one big bear and a small one, but the 
third inflicted apparently only a flesh wound and the bear that 
received it disappeared in the rough ice. 

Natkusiak, about half a mile away, heard the shooting and soon 
arrived. We skinned the two bears, and, making a sort of sledge 
of the skin of the small one, loaded into it its own meat and 
dragged it home, allowing the meat of the other and the seal to 
take its chances. These bears came just in time, for we had but 
a single meal left of the seal killed three days before. The fol- 
lowing day we found where we had left them the other bear and 
the seal, although the ice, which was crushing in the neighborhood, 
might easily have buried them during the night. 

One of the most serious losses when the Karluk sank will be 
recalled as that of our small kerosene-containers intended for 
sledge journeys, which had been substantially made of galvan- 
ized iron. As kerosene is much more convenient than blubber 
for cooking in snowhouses in winter, we were carrying a supply 
of it in an ordinary five-gallon tin such as is furnished by the 
oil companies, and now found that it had sprung a leak and that 
nearly all the kerosene was gone. This mischance, together with 
the too rapid passing of the midwinter period, decided me to give 
up for that year the search for Eskimos and to return to the winter 
base at Kellett. We made the return with such good luck in 
weather for picking a trail through valleys where earlier we had 
floundered up and down ridges, that we were able to travel in one 
day a^ much as forty-five miles, a distance that had taken seven 
days on the way east. 

When we got back to Kellett we found that Wiikins had com- 
pleted a series of tidal observations. But both during this period 
and through most of his time with the expedition he put much 
labor and care into the gathering and preparing of zoological 
specimens. This is, for any one who lacks the scientist's enthusi- 
asm, a sort of work where the fun soon wears off. The animal, say 
a fox, is first measured as to several dimensions in a routine way. 
Next the skin is carefully removed and hung up to dry, salted 
or "poisoned" with arsenic and alum or some similar chemical, 
and a label attached giving all available information as to age, 
sex, size, date and place of kflling, etc. The skull, after being 
cleaned and having the brain removed through the foramen magnum 
in a tedious way, is labelled correspondingly with the skin, and 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 291 

so are the "long bones" of all four legs, and the lot are put away. 
These are the data of the closet naturalist who studies the speci- 
mens and the accompanying information after the expedition gets 
home. 

I have never known any one who worked harder than Wilkins. 
He would be cleaning the scraps of meat off the leg bones of a 
wolf before breakfast and scraping the fat from a bearskin up to 
bedtime at night. His diaries were filled with information about 
the specimens he gathered, his fingers were stained with the pho- 
tographic chemicals used in the development of his innumerable 
plates and films, his mind was always alert and his response al- 
ways cheerful when a new task was proposed. A half dozen such 
men would make an invincible polar expedition. 

Everybody remaining at the home base was working so well 
that it seems almost invidious to single out Wilkins. Crawford, 
Ole Andreasen, and Storkerson were at their trapping camps five, 
fifteen and twenty-five miles away, catching each his hundred or 
two hundred foxes, the pelts of which grow more expensive each 
year as women's need for summer furs increases. These three 
men were working for the expedition only half the year and so 
had time to grow rich during the winter. The men at the base 
camp were trapping foxes also in their spare moments, but many 
pelts went to Wilkins to become zoological specimens and the rest 
to the expedition storekeeper, for all these men were on full pay 
and everything they secured belonged to the Government. But 
most of their time was spent in work preparing for the ice trip. 

Mrs. Thomsen at home and Mrs. Storkerson at the trapping 
camp were busy making or mending skin clothing. Thomsen hunted 
seals for dog feed part of the time and foraged around Kellett 
with his team in search of driftwood. Levi did the cooking, in 
addition to slicing and drying bear and caribou meat to make it 
more portable as sledge provisions, and, most important of all, 
kept everybody in good spirits with his inexhaustible good nature 
and his everlasting tales, some of which were probably truer than 
they sounded, though the adherence to truth was never slavish 
enough to make them commonplace. Captain Bernard, a won- 
derful carpenter, blacksmith and mechanic in all lines, worked 
as early as Wilkins and as late repairing or making sledges. His 
ingenuity and industry were beyond price, for we had no good 
sledge except the one used in coming to Banks Island over the ice 
the previous spring. Neither did we have any really suitable 
material for making a new sled, but by plundering the Sachs of a 



292 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

bit of hardwood here and a strip of iron there Bernard was able 
to make us one of the finest sleds we ever used. It must have 
hurt him to do it, for he loved the Sachs, which he had owned for 
many years before selling her to us, and he had sold her with the 
provision that he might buy her back at the end of the voyage. He 
already had dreams and plans of what he would then do with her. 



130° 

Department i 
CANADIAN Aj 

Discoveries 




LEGEND 

Route to Victoria I. i 

Sled Travel \ 

Sled Journey over Drifting^ 
73' [-Pack Dogs | 

Route of the "Polar BearLl. 

Storkerson s Trail , 

New Coast Line J 

SOUNDINGS IN ME 



1 

LIVERPi 



130° 



CHAPTER XXIX 

SPRING TRAVEL, 1915 

THE first advance ice party of tiie year left Cape Kellett under 
the command of Wilkins on February 9th, and the rest of us 
started a few days later. Our plan was to follow the west 
coast of Banks Island north about a hundred and fifty miles and 
then to cross McClure Strait to Prince Patrick Island and strike out 
on the ocean northwest from the southwest corner of that island. 

Before leaving I had come to realize that we were facing a 
failure of the plans for that spring because of circumstances not 
to be prevented, however clearly foreseen. The various sorts of 
dog sickness are still as mysterious as were the African fevers in 
the time of Livingstone. By Christmas-time our dogs at Kellett 
had begun to die one by one. In some cases it was the fattest 
and the youngest dogs, in others the oldest and most decrepit. The 
only thing we could do was to isolate the affected animals from 
the healthy ones, and this may have helped, although one or two 
of the dogs that died appeared never to have had any contact 
with the ones that originally showed the disease. There are many 
theories about these diseases. There may be some significance 
in the fact that we have never lost any dogs that have been living 
on caribou or other land game, but always dogs that have been 
living on seal meat. 

When we finally got away from Kellett we still had two good 
dog-teams and a third poor one, which was really all we needed 
with only two first-class sledges. But a day or two after starting 
we faced a serious additional difficulty. During the preceding 
autumn a certain amount of snow had first fallen upon the coast 
ice and later a shower of rain had formed a skin of ice over the 
snow. On top soft snow had again fallen, but the thin layer of 
ice was left as a sort of roof over innumerable cavities and soft 
places underneath, so that every few steps a dog would break 
through and get the sharp, angular pieces of thin ice between his 
toes. Before we realized it nearly all our dogs had bleeding feet 
and some of them were incapacitated for work. The temperature 

293 



294 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

was averaging for a period of weeks forty-two degrees below zero. 
Out at sea such cold is really an advantage, but now it prevented 
us from doing what we should have done had the weather been 
warmer — namely, tying boots upon the feet of the dogs to protect 
their pads from the cutting ice. At this temperature we did not 
dare to do it for fear the tight lashing might so interfere with the 
circulation as to cause freezing of the feet. 

When we got to the northwest corner of Banks Island more 
kerosene-containers were leaking. To have kerosene is an un- 
doubted convenience; and now since the only hope of healing the 
feet of our dogs was through a long rest, I sent Storkerson and 
Thomsen back to Kellett for more kerosene, with a team which we 
did not expect to use on the ice, giving the sore- footed dogs a 
rest meantime. The result of these delays was the healing of 
most of the sore feet, but also that it was April 5, 1915, when we 
were finally able to leave shore. It had taken us 55 days to get 
from the south end of Banks Island where our base was, to the 
north end of Banks Island where our base should have been. It 
was now too late, in my opinion, for crossing to Prince Patrickl 
Island, so we struck northwest from Cape Alfred. 

Our party up to this time had consisted of seven men. But 
now I sent back Wilkins, Crawford, and Natkusiak, and the ice 
exploratory party of that year therefore consisted of Storkerson, 
Thomsen, Andreasen, and myself. 

Of the three men that went back, Crawford could not very well 
have been taken on the ice, though he would have been an excellent 
man otherwise, because he had the orthodox attitude towards meat: 
that while it is a desirable part of any meal, no meal should con- 
sist of it wholly. His view was that "no wages could pay him for 
living on meat alone, like a dog or a savage." Natkusiak did not 
mind living on meat, but he was afraid of the sea ice; he con- 
sidered it luck or necromancy that we had not been lost on the 
Martin Point trip. "Some time," he said, "you will go out to 
sea and not come back." He did not consider himself a coward, 
neither do I consider him so. On the basis of what he believed 
about the sea ice he was merely making such a distinction as most 
people approve between courage and foolhardiness. 

As for Wilkins, I would have liked to have him along and he 
would have liked to come. But the value of a more northerly 
base to work from next year, which had always been clear, was 
more than ever clear now after two wasted months on the west 
coast of Banks Island. The obvious thing to do was to send for 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 295 

the North Star so as to have her next summer to make this more 
northerly base in the fall. The only man to fetch her from Corona- 
tion Gulf was Wilkins and I reluctantly delegated him to that job. 
The reluctance was not merely because he would have made aii 
good ice man; I had three good men, all that could be used when 
we had only two strong sleds and two good dog teams. But had 
he been able to spend the summer on Banks Island he could have 
added greatly by photographs and observations set down in his 
notebooks to our knowledge of the topography, geology and nat- 
ural history of this interesting and fertile land. It was our home 
for several years, but because of the paramount importance of 
searching the Beaufort Sea to the west and north for lands and 
deeps and currents and other data of that hidden region, we 
crossed Banks Island always too hurriedly, and brought back 
at the end of the expedition no really comprehensive account of its 
geology, geography or zoology. 

Because the season was already so late we took rather more 
risk on this sea ice journey than I consider generally justifiable 
in polar work. On April 10th, for instance, we camped at the 
southern edge of a level expanse of ice of unknown width. I ex- 
amined it in the evening and found it about four inches thick, 
not strong enough to bear a sled, but that night we had an ex- 
ceptionally hard freeze and the next morning it was between six 
and seven inches thick. This is quite thick enough for loaded 
sledges if the area to be crossed is a limited one, and no matter 
what the area it is safe so long as the ice remains unbroken. But 
ice of this thickness, as indeed of any thickness, may at any time 
be broken up by increase in the strength of a current or the sud-j 
den oncoming of a gale. If the ice is thick no great danger to life 
results, for then a cake of almost any size will be a refuge for men 
and dogs, but if six-inch ice commences to break up no cake 
is safe unless it is of great area; and under the strain cakes 
naturally break into smaller and smaller pieces. If we were to 
find ourselves with a loaded dog-sled on a piece not much bigger 
than is necessary for the men and dogs to stand on, the cake 
would either tip on edge, spilling us into the water, or actually 
sink under our weight. 

It is not often that we have found perfectly level ice to be 
niore than five miles across, and the morning of the 11th when 
we started out on this six-inch ice we expected to cross it in an 
hour. But we found it sticky with the salt crystals on its surface, 
as indeed it was bound to be, and this interfered with speed so that 



296 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

we did not travel at much more than three miles per hour wherie- 
we had thoughtlessly supposed we could run at the rate of five 
or six. In some places the ice had telescoped on the previous day, 
but wherever it was of single thickness it bent perceptibly though 
slowly under our weight, and we never dared to stop except upon 
telescoped places. 

Hour after hour we traveled and the horizon was everywhere 
a straight line with the sky. It was exceedingly cold, and clouds 
of "steam" were seen rising here and there. These worried us a 
bit, for we thought they might be from opening leads, danger 
signals that the break-up of our ice had commenced. But there 
was about an even chance they might be rising merely because six- 
inch ice is so warm from the water underneath that it throws 
off clouds of vapor if the air is at a low temperature. The vapor 
clouds continually receding before us showed that they did not 
come from open water, but were forming from the ice. After 
twenty miles of travel under this fairly tense nervous strain we 
sighted some heavy old ice upon which to make a safe camp for 
the night. Less than an hour after we landed the thinner ice we 
had left began breaking up. This gave excellent sealing water 
right by our camp, but it gave also an uncomfortable feeling that 
had the thin ice been five miles wider or had we started an hour 
later, this day would have been the last day of our travels. 

For some two weeks traveling northwest from Cape Alfred 
our soundings showed an uneven sea bottom, for the water varied 
in depth from a hundred to two hundred fathoms. Comparison 
of the dead reckoning with our astronomical observations also 
showed that the ice we were on was moving steadily to the south- 
west — an inconvenient fact when our hopes all lay to the north- 
west. There was a great deal of open water, but a quarter or 
half a mile of it took us only an hour or two to cross, for we 
were expert by this time in converting our sleds into boats by the 
use of the tarpaulin. Much more often the leads were filled with 
moving ice, or with stationary ice not strong enough ta walk on 
but so strong that, had we attempted to break a way through it 
with our sled boat we should in half a dozen crossings have chafed 
holes in the already worn canvas. 

A delay beside a lead when the ice is not moving is one thing, 
and a delay when it is drifting opposite to your course is quite 
another. We took frequent chances in crossing leads on thin ice, 
and one of these crossings, on April 25th, came near ending in 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 297 

disaster. We had realized the risk and taken certain precautions. 
Our main dependence being always rifles and ammunition, we 
carried half the ammunition and two rifles on each sled, and for 
an additional precaution I used to carry my own rifle on my back, 
and about fifty rounds of ammunition with it. Had we lost one 
sled we could still have continued with the other; and had we 
lost both, the fifty cartridges would probably have taken the four 
of us home, even across five or six hundred miles of sea ice and 
uninhabited land. The question of footgear for so long a walk 
would have been the most important. We should have had to 
bend every effort toward getting home — there would have been 
no loitering by the way. Certainly exploration for the year would 
have been at an end. 

The accident resulted when we came to a strip of young ice 
about ten yards wide. As on all such occasions, I walked out 
upon it carefully, while the teams and men awaited the verdict. 
With my hunting-knife I made holes at three different places, 
and by putting my hand in the water found the ice was about 
six inches thick. To those used to fresh water, ice of six inches 
seems a great thickness, and as a matter of fact a team of dray- 
horses and a heavy load could be taken across six inches of fresh- 
water ice. Salt-water ice is a different thing. A piece four inches 
thick, if you allow it to drop on any hard surface from a height of 
three or four feet, will splash like a chunk of ice-cream instead of 
falling like a piece of glass as would glare ice of the same thick- 
ness. So I knew the crossing was dangerous, but it was so short 
that I thought the dogs would probably be upon firm footing be- 
fore the ice broke, if it did break. 

The first sled crossed safely. It had been built by Captain 
Bernard according to a modification of my own of the standard 
Nome design, with runners that rested on the ice for seven out of 
their twelve feet of length, so as to distribute the weight over a 
large area. The other sled was of the typical Alaskan type, where 
the runners are bent somewhat rocking-chair fashion to make the 
sled easier to turn and maneuver, and only two or three feet 
of the middle part of the runners rest on level ice. 

Ole was in charge of the leading sled, and as it came across 
without difficulty Storkerson and Thomsen anticipated no trouble 
with the second. They were walking close to the rear end when I 
noticed the ice under them begin to bend. I shouted to them to 
get away from the sled, my thought being to remove their weight 



298 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and to expose the ice to the sled's weight only. But when they 
realized that the ice was about to break they began to push the 
sled with the idea of getting it quickly over to the other side. 
When both of them took hold of the handle-bars and commenced 
pushing, the inevitable happened. The sled broke through, after 
the dogs had landed on the firm ice beyond, but when the front 
end had barely touched it. Before the ice had fully broken 
I had hold of the trace of the leading dog and Ole was at the bow. 
Storkerson and Thomsen escaped falling into the water by letting 
the sled go, and the stern was immersed while the bow was held 
against the ice by the combined pull of the dogs, Ole and myself. 
It was doubtless not much more than a second before we all had 
our hands on the front end of the sled and not more than two or 
three till we had it out of the water, but it seemed much longer, 
and it was certainly long enough for us to visualize what our situa- 
tion would be if we lost what was on the load. Not a fatal situa- 
tion necessarily, although we might have had to give up our work 
for the year at that point. As it was, we had to spend the nexl) 
two days in camp getting rid of as much as possible of the ice 
that had formed on the articles that got into the water. 

After the accident we examined the ice, measured every broken 
piece, and found that at the very thinnest it was five and three- 
quarters inches thick. The temperature in the shade at the time 
had been twenty below zero, but the sun was shining on the ice, 
bringing the temperature upon its surface up to about zero F. 

Long before this we had left the area of shallow soundings 
and were now traveling over an ocean of unknown depth, for 
our sounding-wire of 4,500 feet never sufficed to reach bottom. 
The ice behaved in a peculiar way. When the wind blew from 
the south or southwest, no matter how hard, it would merely stop 
moving, or, in the case of an extreme gale, would in the course of 
a day move a few miles to the north. But whenever there was a 
calm or when the wind was from the northwest, the north, or the 
east, the ice kept moving steadily southwest. In other words, a 
large part of our gain by walking northwest was neutralized by 
this nearly constant drift to the southwest. By the middle of 
May we had lost hope of making any notable journey to the north- 
west that year, for we were only a hundred miles offshore from 
the Prince Patrick Island coast. 

For a time after reaching this conclusion we tried to travel 
northeast directly into the teeth of the drift, but we lost as much 
ground at night as we gained in the daytime, and eventually turned 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 299 

toward shore. The current was so strong, however, that we were 
unable to reach land on Prince Patrick Island abreast of our 
turning-point but were carried south, and were with difficulty able 
to get ashore on the southwest corner near Land's End, on June 4th. 



CHAPTER XXX 

MEN AND BEARS AS SEAL HUNTERS 

THE west coast of Prince Patrick Island was explored in 1853 
by a party under command of Lieutenant Mecham, of Mc- 
Clintock's expedition. Mecham tells how no country could 
possibly be more barren or desolate. Not a blade of grass was found 
nor a living creature, but gravel everywhere, and the land sloped so 
imperceptibly to the sea that they had to dig through the snow 
to ascertain whether they were on land or on ice. In view of this 
and of the fact that we had been for several weeks out of fuel 
and had finished our dog feed before that, it became necessary to 
talk over the advisability of going on. We all knew that the 
world would approve if we were to turn home at this point, for 
it has been the rule in arctic exploration that the traveling parties 
face toward home soon after half their provisions are gone, rely- 
ing on the other half to take them back. It had been so with 
Mecham and with McClintock; a portion of this very coast re- 
mained unexplored because Mecham's party on the south and Mc- 
Clintock's on the north had been forced by the partial exhaustion 
of supplies to turn back toward their base on Melville Island. 

But I was delighted to find all of us agreeing that no risk of 
life was involved in advancing into any portion of the Arctic 
without supplies at this season of the year. While we did not ex- 
pect to find Mecham wrong in saying that no life could be found 
on the coast of Prince Patrick Island, we felt that this would only 
mean that if our experience agreed with his we should have to 
turn back to sea again, where, on the ice and in the water, food 
could be secured. This was a fact that Mecham and the explorers 
of his time did not realize, as we can see by his account pub- 
lished in the Parliamentary Blue Books, and by Sir Clements 
Markham's review of the work of Mecham and McClintock in 
his "Life of Admiral McClintock." So we traveled on, enthusi- 
astic not only about possible discoveries ahead, but about proving 
that they are wrong who lack faith in the bounty of the Arctic. 

In following the coast northeastward we soon saw that 

300 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 301 

Mecham's charting of it was by no means correct, but we saw also 
that were we to attempt to revise its minute details our results 
would not be much better than his, if at all. It was a question of 
light. There is much fog at this season, and Mecham had evi- 
dently done a good deal of his mapping in fog, with the inevitable 
results. If we were going to attempt a revision of his work we 
should have to do part of our work in fog also, and those portions 
of the coast where he had sunlight would have been done by him 
better than we could do them in fog; the only improvement we 
could hope for would be here and there where our luck in weather 
was better than his. Nor can any one with any reasonable ease 
make a map of this coast in winter, for the land slopes so im- 
perceptibly into the sea ice that so long as snow covers both alike, 
their limits can be ascertained only by digging. A good map of 
this coast can be made only when the land is free of snow, in late 
June, July or in August. 

A few days confirmed Mecham's opinion of the absence of 
game. Accordingly, we went offshore about ten or twelve miles 
to where the landfast ice meets the moving pack, and there in the 
open lead secured some seals. It is a curious fact, confirmed by the 
experience of years besides this one, that bear tracks are absent in 
spring north of the south end of Prince Patrick Island. This is 
doubtless because seals in these latitudes and longitudes are in- 
accessible to bears on account of the peculiar ice conditions, al- 
though they are easily secured by the more skillful human hunter, 
whose methods it is high time for us to describe. 

There is little originality about our methods of hunting seals — 
we have borrowed them from the Eskimos unchanged except for 
the omission of numerous superstitious practices which, though con- 
sidered integral parts of the technique by the natives, present them- 
selves to our minds as clearly adventitious. 

Obviously seals, where they exist, are found in one of three 
situations — they are on top of the sea ice, under it, or in the open 
water between the floes. Accordingly, there are three branches to 
the method of the hunter. 

The simplest case is when you hunt seals in open water. On 
arriving at the edge of a lead or other body of water you may 
find dozens of seals swimming about within gunshot. We shoot 
seals through the head, commonly, because a seal is more likely 
to sink with a body wound, especially one that lets blood or water 
into the lungs. In all seasons except summer nine killed seals 
out of ten will float if shot through the head and perhaps seven 



302 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

out of ten even with a body wound. As noted elsewhere, the 
sinking of a large percentage in summer is probably due not so 
much to the seals then being less fat and of a higher specifio 
gravity, as to the comparative freshness and diminished specific 
gravity of the surface sea water, the fresh water of the rains and 
thaws forming a surface layer on the ocean through which the 
seals sink to the heavier, saltier water below. 

If the killed seal floats, and is not more than twenty to thirty 
yards away, he is secured by the manak. A manak is a ball of 
wood the size of a grapefruit. At its equator are three sharp re- 
curved steel hooks and at one pole is a ring to which is attached 
a long cod line or slender thong. The hunter holds the coiled 
line cowboy-fashion in his left hand and with a fathom of free 
rope he swings the manak about his head till it whizzes, and then 
throws it somewhat as the South Americans are said to do the 
bolas. You throw beyond the seal where he floats like a short 
log in the water. Before pulling in you try to flip the line over 
so that as you haul towards you it will drag over the seal. As 
the manak is about to slide over the back of the seal you give a 
sharp jerk, one of the hooks catches in the seal's skin and you 
pull him to you. 

If the seal is too far off to be reached by the manak you con- 
vert a tarpaulin and a sled into a sledboat, as already described 
for crossing leads, and paddle out to the seal. 

When you come to open water you may see dozens of seals 
swimming about, but again you may have to wait a dozen hours 
before you see the first seal. You may see none the first day, 
which requires a second day of watchful waiting. If you see none 
the second day you watch a third day and, if needed, a fourth. 
So far it has never happened to us that we did not secure a seal 
within four days of watching; but if that did happen we would 
simply continue waiting if we needed the meat and had no other 
way of getting it. If you are on a ''water hole" surrounded on 
all sides by ice but slightly broken, you should not undertake a 
wait of more than a few hours, for no seals may come. But if 
you are on a lead of considerable length it is merely a question 
of a few days at most till they arrive, for the great leads are their 
highways. From your camp by a lead you may see no seal Mon- 
day and Tuesday where a hundred may pass you on Wednesday 
and Thursday. 

To understand the detection and securing of seals under the 
ice our view must go back to the preceding summer. Each sue- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 303 

cessive summer gale breaks the ice more, and there are no frosts 
to cement the fragments together before autumn. There is enough 
water between the floes so seals can travel freely in all directions, 
and they do, coming up in the free water patches to breathe. 
Then comes the autumn with its light frosts and mushy young ice 
forming everywhere. The seals are reluctant to stop their wan- 
derings and are free to continue them awhile, for a sharp upward 
bunt of their heads will break ice up to four inches thick and give 
them a chance to breathe. When a seal travels along a lead cov- 
ered with young ice he leaves behind a trail of circular fracture 
spots from a dozen to several dozen yards apart. Months later, 
and up to next summer, these fracture spots are our game signs, 
our index to the former presence of seals. Most of them are hid- 
den by the snow in winter, but if you watch as you travel, all day 
and every day, you will eventually be rewarded by seeing an ice 
patch swept bare by some wind eddy where there happens to be 
the characteristic round fracture spot. 

But when the ice thickens beyond four inches and hardens, the 
seals must stop traveling and take up residence. Here, by indus- 
trious gnawing, they keep breathing holes open all winter. At 
the surface these holes have openings only an inch or two in 
diameter; but underneath they are enlarged continually until as 
the ice thickens to two or four or even the maximum of seven 
feet, they become cigar-shaped chambers of diameter large enough 
for the seal's body. Each seal may have a half-dozen of these 
cigar-shaped chambers leading to breathing holes that are cov- 
ered with a few inches or a few feet of snow and thus hidden from 
the observation of man and from the eye of an animal. A bear can 
discover them by the sense of smell. This may serve his purpose 
if the ice is only a few inches thick, as he can with his mighty 
strength fracture it for several square yards around. The seal will 
imagine this ice to have been broken by the pressure of wind 
and current and will rise with purpose to breathe and with result 
of becoming a meal for the waiting bear. Near land the ice is 
much broken by pressure at all times of year and young ice thin 
enough to be broken by a bear is continually forming over patches 
where seals sported in open water a few days earlier. On this 
young ice as well as in the open water itself the bears know how 
to get the seals. But far from land the pressures are milder and 
the ice less often broken by it, so that there are large areas where 
the skill and strength of the bears do not suffice to get them any 
seals. Accordingly, bears are rare or absent, which is one of the 



304 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

reasons for the view which was universally held that seals were 
non-existent in the deep polar ocean far from land. Bears are' 
really absent from these areas because they lack the ability to get 
seals there and not because the seals are absent. 

Man alone would not succeed any better than the bear in find- 
ing seals on the large areas of fairly level ice far at sea, but man 
and the dog in partnership combine the needed abilities. A man 
and a trained bear could do as well. 

The breathing holes of seals are sometimes seen on patches of 
ice swept bare of snow by the wind, but these holes have usually 
been abandoned by the seal. The ones in actual use are generally 
covered with snow so no eye can see them and no faculty of man 
detect, and only bear or dog can find them by the sense of smell. 
While this ability does the bear no good if the ice is too strong to be 
broken, the ingenuity of man is equal to the task of securing the seal. 

If a man who has no interest in seals, or to whom it has never 
occurred that any might be near, drives a dog-team over snow- 
covered ice and finds them wanting to stop and sniff the snow, 
he urges them on impatiently, imagining the dogs trying to find 
an excuse to shirk. But if you believe that seals are found here 
and there all over the polar ocean, you will infer when a dog wants 
to pause and sniff the snow that a seal's breathing hole is con- 
cealed underneath. This inference is usually right, for there are 
few other things up there that smell. 

If you allow it, the dogs may begin to dig in the snow as a 
dog would for a rodent. You must not permit it, for daylight 
in the breathing hole will scare the seal. The dogs' usefulness is 
over when they have scented out the holes. You lead or drive them 
to a distance of a few score yards where they lie down and sleep 
while your part of the work is on. 

After quieting the dogs you go back, take a long rod like a 
slender cane and with it poke and prod the snow till the rod 
slips through into water. Now the hole is exactly located. You 
withdraw the cane and fill the hole made by it with soft snow to 
prevent clear daylight from entering. Then, by scraping with 
your hunting knife or by cutting blocks you remove most of the 
snow from over the hole, leaving a layer of only a few inches. 
Next you take an ivory ''indicator" that much resembles a coarse 
knitting needle and stick it down through the snow so that its 
lower end passes through the breathing hole and is immersed in 
the water. When the seal rises to breathe his nose will strike this 
indicator and shove it upwards. You are now standing motion- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 305 

less above the hole (and perhaps have been for hours, for this 
hunting method, like most other primitive ways of getting game, 
requires much patience). Your eye should not leave the indicator 
where it stands upright like a peg in the snow. When the seal 
rises to breathe you cannot hear him, you cannot see him, and 
you have no warning till the indicator quivers or moves up. Then 
you drive your harpoon down alongside the indicator. If you 
hit the one or two-inch hole you hit the seal, for his nose is in 
the hole. He is now harpooned and you hold him by the harpoon 
line twisted around one leg while with an ice chisel you enlarge 
the hole enough to drag him out. One man can do this easily with 
a common seal {phoca hispida) weighing 150 or 200 pounds, but 
with a bearded seal weighing 600 or 800 pounds it is no easy 
job for two men. 

The reason why you may have to wait for hours and even days 
for your seal to come up in the breathing hole is that he may have 
a dozen other breathing holes scattered through several acres of 
snow-covered ice, and he may be using one of the others tempo- 
rarily. It is therefore best for several men to work together. 
When one hole has been located and a hunter stationed there, other 
hunters should take dogs in leash and lead them around in circles 
until as many holes have been located as there are available 
hunters. This greatly increases the chances of getting the seal 
promptly. Any clumsiness of method at one hole will, further- 
more, merely drive the seal to another hole watched by a better 
hunter. 

No one should aim to live by hunting on the sea ice without 
understanding this manner of sealing, called by the Eskimos the 
"mauttok," or waiting method (in the Greenlandic dialects ''mau- 
pok") ; but in actual practice we have never had to resort to it. 
We have merely had it as another string to our bow. Our seals 
are secured either by the (among the Eskimos) nameless way 
first described where a seal is shot in open water, or by the pro- 
cedure about to be described, called by the Eskimos the "auktok" 
or crawling method. 

Seals may at any season of year crawl up on the ice to lie 
there and sleep, but they do it chiefly in the spring and summer — 
from March when it still goes down to 30° or 40° Fahrenheit be- 
low zero to midsummer when even on the ice the temperature is 
40° or 50° above zero and much of the surface is covered with 
pools of water. 

A seal does not crawl unguardedly at any time out on the ice 



306 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

from his hole (enlarged by his teeth, or by the thaw, till it will 
let him up) or from the lead in which he has been swimming. He 
is always fearful of polar bears. When he wants to come up and 
bask, he spies out the situation by bobbing up from the water as 
high as he can, lifting his head a foot or two above the general ice 
level. This he does at intervals for some time — perhaps for hours — 
until he concludes there are no bears around and ventures to hitch 
himself out on the ice. 

Here follows another period of extreme vigilance during which 
the seal lies beside his hole ready to dive in again at the slightest 
alarm. Eventually, however, he begins to take the naps that were 
his desire in coming out of the water. But his sleep is restless 
through fear of bears. He takes naps of thirty or forty or fifty 
seconds or perhaps a minute. Then he raises his head ten or 
fifteen inches from the ice and spends five to twenty seconds in 
making a complete survey of the horizon before taking another 
nap. A nap of three minutes is protracted slumber for a seal, 
although far away from land and in other regions where bears are 
few or absent I have seen them sleep for five and six minutes. 

In rare cases basking seals will be found lying within rifle 
shot from an ice hummock or land, and can be shot from cover. 
Ordinarily, however, they select a level expanse of ice. In that 
case they will see the hunter long before he gets near enough to 
shoot. An essential of a successful hunt is therefore to convince 
the seal that you are something that is not dangerous. He may 
see you move and so you must convince him that you are some 
harmless animal. 

There are only three animals with which seals are familiar — 
bears, white foxes and other seals. It would not serve the hunter 
to pretend he is a bear, for that is the one thing the seal fears. 
This consideration shows you must not wear white clothes for the 
advantage of "protective coloration" on the white ice. The seal 
will probably see you, and if he sees something suspicious and 
white he will think of a bear and dive instantly. You cannot very 
well pretend to be a fox for they are not much larger than cats, are 
very agile and continually keep hopping around. That part you 
would fail in playing. But if you are dressed in dark clothing 
and are lying flat on the ice you look at a distance much like a 
seal and you will find by trying it that you can imitate his ac- 
tions successfully. 

You can learn the auktok method of sealing from an Eskimo if 
you are among some group who practice it, but there are several 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 307 

groups among whom it is not in use. But in any case you can 
learn from the seals themselves, for your task is but to imitate 
them. Take your field glass with you and spend a few hours or 
days in watching basking seals from a safe distance. With seals 
that is 400 or 500 yards. In the books of the nature fakers ani- 
mals are sometimes endowed with marvelously keen sight. I 
think it is true of many birds; and mountain sheep see well, 
though I doubt that they see as well as a man. Of the remaining 
"big game" animals known to me, the wolf has the keenest sight 
and yet conditions of visibility have to be favorable to him if he 
can see you at much over 500 or 600 yards. Neither a grizzly nor 
a polar bear is likely to see you at more than half that, nor are 
polar cattle, while a caribou may see you at 400 or 500 yards. A 
seal is not likely to see you at much over 300 yards. 

Your cue is, then, to begin playing seal when you are about 
300 yards away. Up to that point you advance by walking bent 
while the seal sleeps and dropping on your knees to wait motion- 
less while he is awake. But at less than 300 yards he might notice 
you on all fours, and as that is not a seal-like posture you must 
begin to wriggle ahead snake-fashion. You must not crawl head-on, 
for a man in that position is not so convincingly like a seal as he 
would be in side view. You must therefore crawl side-on, or craw- 
fish fashion. 

You crawl ahead while the seal sleeps and you lie motionless 
while he is awake. Had you been upright or on all fours he might 
have noticed you at 300 yards but now he does not till you are 
perhaps 200 yards away. When he first sees you his actions are 
plainly interpreted — he becomes tense, raises his head a little 
higher, crawls a foot or two closer to the water to be ready to dive, 
and then watches you, intent and suspicious. If you remain mo- 
tionless, his suspicions increase at the end of the first minute, and 
before the third or fourth minute are over he plunges into the water, 
for he knows that no real seal is likely to lie motionless that long. 
Therefore, before the first minute of his watching is over you 
should do something seal-like. You are lying flat on the ice like 
a boy sleeping on a lawn. The easiest seal-like thing to do is to 
lift your head ten or fifteen inches, spend ten or fifteen seconds 
looking around, then drop your head on the ice again. By doing 
this half a dozen times at thirty or fifty-second intervals you will 
very likely convince your seal that you are another seal. 

But some seals are skeptical. If yours seems restive and sus- 
picious it is well to increase the verisimilitude of your acting by not 



308 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

only lifting your head at varying intervals but also going through 
whatever seal-like antics you have observed while watching the 
real seals through your field glasses. 

It is one of the few unharmful results of the late war that we 
can now describe freely and discuss openly certain things that 
were taboo before. Thanks to the war experience and frankness 
of our soldiers, those of us who lack practical experience have at 
least theoretical knowledge of the "cooties" which our more fa- 
miliar ancestors knew as a louse. Seals are lousy, not with our 
familiar graybacks of course, but with a variety of louse or tick 
of their own. Being thus infested they itch, itching they want to 
scratch, and not being restrained by any etiquette in these matters 
they are continually rubbing and scratching themselves. They rub 
themselves by rolling on the ice and scratch chiefly with their hind 
flippers which are long and flexible and armed with admirable 
claws. It is therefore advisable for the hunter to roll about a 
little and to flex his legs from the knees frequently as if scratching 
with hind flippers. These actions make an impression upon the seal 
which in the long run is convincing and in eight cases out of ten 
a good hunter is accepted as a fellow seal that has just come out 
of his hole to bask and sleep. The seals that refuse to be con- 
vinced have probably had a narrow escape recently from a bear. 
Possibly, too, some of them may be getting hungry and may 
decide not to bother to study the new arrival but to take the occa- 
sion for going down and having a feed. That this motive fre- 
quently influences seals we judge from the fact that towards 
midnight a seal usually goes down soon after noticing us. As 
remarked elsewhere, a seal usually comes up on the ice in the 
early morning or forenoon and commonly goes down to feed 
towards midnight. 

But if you once get your seal convinced he stays convinced. 
There is nothing fickle about a seal. He not only does not fear 
you but even appears to rely on you. He is always alertly on 
guard against the approach of a bear. I am not very deep in seal 
psychology, but they appear to me to say to themselves: "Over 
there is a brother seal, and if a bear approaches from that side he 
will get him before he gets me. So I can afford to leave that 
quarter unwatched and can devote myself to guarding against a 
surprise from the other side." As if he held this view, the seal 
will give you only a casual glance now and then and you can 
approach with great confidence. You crawl ahead while he sleeps 
and stop when he wakes up. If he watches you for more than a 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 309 

few moments you reassure him of your sealship by raising and 
dropping your head, rolling and wriggling as if itchy, and by flexing 
your legs from the knees as if scratching with hind flippers — all 
this lying flat on the ice with your side towards the seal and never 
allowing him to see your long arms, for a seal's front flippers are 
short. If you are careful, if the snow is not crusty so it crunches, 
if a moderate wind from the direction of the seal covers any 
noises there may be, you can crawl as near him as you like. I 
have known Eskimos to crawl right up to a seal and seize him by 
a flipper with one hand while they stab him with a knife with 
the other. But they do this only rarely, either ''for a stunt" or else 
because they have not the proper hunting gear with them. Ordi- 
narily an Eskimo hurls his harpoon from a distance of from ten 
to thirty feet. I ordinarily shoot from a distance of twenty-five 
to seventy-five yards. 

An Eskimo, using his native gear, holds the harpooned seal 
by the harpoon line. With a rifle only a brain shot will serve; 
for if the seal is not instantly killed he will crawl to the water 
and dive. The reason why I hardly ever shoot at as much as a 
hundred yards is that the seal is lying on an incline of ice beside 
the hole or lead. There are few things so slippery as wet ice and 
the mere shock of instant death may start him sliding and the 
blood from his wound may get under him, lubricating the ice and 
making him slide faster. The seal in most cases has buoyancy 
enough to float. But in sliding towards the water he acquires 
momentum enough to take him down diagonally ten or twenty 
feet. He then comes up diagonally under the thick ice and you 
can't get him. Fearing this, I always drop my rifle the moment I 
fire and run as hard as I can towards the seal. In some cases he 
does not slide at all and I slacken speed on getting nearer; in 
others he is sliding, gradually gaining headway, and I slide for 
him like a player stealing a base in baseball. In some cases I have 
caught the seal by a flipper just as he was disappearing; in others 
I have been too late and the seal, though stone dead, has been lost. 

A good hunter should get sixty or seventy per cent, of the seals 
he goes after. The approach takes on the average about two hours. 

Readers of antarctic books may wonder, ''Why all this to-do 
about just the right way to hunt seals?" Their idea is that you can 
secure a seal any old way. So you can — in the Antarctic. Down 
South the seal knows no enemy, for there were no predatory animals 
till the explorers came. Fear is consequently unknown to them and 
if you walk up to a seal and scratch him he will roll over so you 



310 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

can scratch him better. The Arctic is different. It takes patience 
and an elaborate technique to get a seal near Prince Patrick Island. 
In the account of his journey in 1853 to the very place where we 
were now, McClintock, our only predecessor, said he had seen 
several seals, ''but of course we were unable to secure them." It 
was formerly supposed that the auktok and mauttok methods de- 
scribed above could be used only by Eskimo hunters. But white 
men can use them equally. 

In the fall hunting seals by the auktok method is often dan- 
gerous, for they are lying on ice so thin and treacherous that the 
hunter may break through, especially while trying to get the seal 
from the hole after he is killed. In midwinter seals can seldom 
be secured in this way because they do not crawl out on the ice. 
From April to June we kill most of our seals by this method. 
From June to September there is so much water on top of the ice 
that the auktok necessitates wriggling, snake-fashion, through 
pools of ice water from a few inches to a foot or more deep. This 
is not only disagreeable, but the almost unavoidable splashing 
may scare the seals. Therefore this is essentially a springtime 
method of hunting. We get about a third of our seals by it, two 
thirds by shooting them in open water. As said above, the maut- 
tok method we keep in our minds merely as a standby. It is 
used by Eskimos in midwinter on level, thick bay ice near land. 
We would use it on the large expanses of fairly uniform ice found 
far from land if any of these proved so extensive that we ran out 
of food before we came to open sealing water. This has never 
happened to us, though it appears from the narrative of other ex- 
plorers that it would be likely to happen. But that is because 
their travel methods were different from ours. 

Our method of selecting a route over sea ice differs funda- 
mentally from that of other explorers because our method of 
subsistence differs fundamentally. The Bible tells that the Is- 
raelites were guided across the desert by a pillar of cloud by day. 
The inference is that they traveled directly towards the pillar of 
cloud. As we traverse the sea ice in winter we see all about us 
pillars of cloud. If we are relying on the food in our sledges and 
either believe that no seals exist in the vicinity or else do not 
take any interest in them, then we avoid the pillars of cloud, 
for we know that each is but the vapor rising from a patch of open 
water hindering progress. To avoid these is a great concern to 
those who do not expect to profit by anything found in or near the 
open water and who are struggling ahead slowly and laboriously 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



311 



with laden sledges. But we are traveling rapidly and freely with 
light sledges. A detour therefore delays us less, and further, we 
have our food and fuel in the meat and fat of the seals that may 
be in these patches of water and the bears that prowl about the 
margins seeking seals. We therefore travel towards the pillars 
of cloud where others have avoided them and usually camp near 
the patches of open water. It ordinarily takes the men two hours 
to build the snowhouse, feed the dogs, cook the supper and get 
everything snug for the night. In less time than that I usually 
get a seal and bring it to camp before the chores are done. But, 
as said above, we give any needed time to the hunting and get 
to-morrow the seal we cannot get to-day. 

The basking seals are usually seen first from some high hum- 
mock which we have climbed for reconnoitering with field glasses. 
They are killed either while the men are making camp ; or else there 
is a pause made in the day's march while the hunter crawls up to 
the seal. In that case the men usually cook us a hot lunch while 
waiting, for — by the very nature of our method — it would be illog- 
ical to go on food and fuel rations in a country where hunting is 
actually being carried on. The animal when secured is then dragged 
behind the sled till camp time when he is cut up, part fed to the dogs, 
part cooked for us, and the rest stowed in the sled. A party of three 
men and six dogs need about two seals per week. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

WE COMPLETE THE MAPPING OF PRINCE PATRICK ISLAND 

BECAUSE we traveled parallel to the land ten or twelve miles 
offshore, we found a series of small islands or reefs that 
Mecham had not noticed. When finally we came to the por- 
tion of the coast which he. and McClintock had been unable to ex- 
plore in 1853, we loaded up our sledges with meat and blubber and 
proceeded toward shore. The coast turned out to be rather compli- 
cated and there were several little islands. It took three days to 
complete the survey between the most southwesterly reached by 
McClintock, who had been working from the opposite direction. 

When we started traveling on June 13th we were just about 
finishing, we thought, the unexplored part of the coast. The seal 
meat brought to land a few days before was now nearly gone. 
We had expected, any time it was finished, to leave the coast for 
a trip out to the shore floe, about ten or twelve miles, to get more 
food and blubber for fuel. But now that the weather was getting 
rapidly warmer the sun was thawing the roofs off the winter 
habitations of the seals that dwelt in the bays and shallow shore 
water, and they were beginning to come out upon the ice to sun 
themselves. It may be that the seals found in winter farthest from 
shore are the smallest, and that they get bigger the nearer land 
you find them. At any rate, I am fairly sure that the seals that 
come out on the inshore ice in late spring in places like Banks, 
Prince Patrick or the Ringnes Islands, are far larger than the 
average. 

I think we had already seen two or three of these basking seals 
before I shot one the evening of that day. This was the largest 
''common" seal {phoca hispida) we had killed up to that time on 
either our 1914 trip or the present one. We weighed it with a 
spring balance as follows: meat 97% pounds, head, flippers, stomach, 
lungs, etc. (some of these suitable to eat, though we do not class 
them as "meat" in this estimate) 32% pounds, hide with blubber at- 
tached 85 pounds. We estimated in addition 1% gallons of blood, 

312 



^ 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 313 

some of which was used for "blood soup" * for ourselves and some 
for the dogs. Perhaps the "live weight" of the animal was towards 
300 pounds, but it is probable the seals killed by us throughout the 
year would average under 150 pounds. That depends on whether 
we count the occasional bearded seals {erignathus barbatus). 
These run up to 800 pounds each, and a few of them bring up the 
average handsomely. 

The evening of June 13th we camped on a grassy island shaped 
like a huge comma — huge only as a comma, not as an island, for 
it was only a mile across. We felt pretty sure that our survey 
had now begun to overlap McClintock's. We had been working 
in thick weather much of the time. So had he, as can be seen 
from the following quotation which, so far as concerns descrip- 
tion of land, ice and weather, might have served as an entry in 
our own diaries. He wrote it sixty-two years before at just about 
the spot where we were now: 

"16th June. Saw two other small islands and encamped inside the 
second one, on a small sand-heap at half -past five o'clock. Appearances 
were against us when we commenced this march, the dark threatening 
weather, high contrary wind with falling snow, sand heaps in all direc- 
tions, and driving banks of fog, so that the land could seldom be seen; 
and the snow-covered land too, showed only as a low streak of bright 
white, with the top of an occasional bare ridge appearing through it at 
long intervals like a dark horizontal line. At our last encampment this 
decided land was about 1 mile within us, whilst the sand-heaps extended 
nearly 1^/2 mile outside of us. Almost all this march has been over flat 
sand-banks covered with soft but level snow. A continuous line of very 

* Blood soup is a dish, the preparation of which we learned from the 
Eskimos. It is made after the boiling of any sort of meat, and Eskimos 
usually consider that the blood used should be of the same sort of animal 
as the meat boiled, although I have known seal's blood to be used with 
caribou broth. The preparation is as follows: When the meat has been 
sufficiently cooked it is removed from the pot which is still hanging over the 
fire. Blood is then poured slowly into the boiling broth with brisk stirring 
the while. In winter small chunks of frozen blood dropped in one after the 
other take the place of the liquid blood poured in summer. If the tempera- 
ture of the soup is too much reduced the pot is allowed to hang over the 
fire until it comes nearly to a boil again, but not quite. Stirring must con- 
tinue while the soup is over the fire. The consistency of the prepared dish 
should be about that of "English pea soup." Among Eskimos it was for- 
merly drunk from horn dippers — the horn of ovibos being used in the east 
and those of the mountain sheep in Alaska. Nowadays tin or other cups 
are used and sometimes spoons. Small pieces of caribou or other suet 
may be added; if seal's fat is the only kind available, a little uncooked oil 
is added just before serving. Soup, among such Eskimos as I know, is not 
served nearly so hot as among us; we would consider lukewarm what they 
call hot. 



314 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

formidable hummocks has been seen in the offing. These sand-heaps 
have a considerable intermixture of mud, probably washed off the land, 
whilst the Polynia Islands lying further offshore are all pure gravel. 
We also find here small pieces of gray gniess. On this little patch of 
earth I found the jawbone of a seal, and a few very small pieces of much 
decayed wood. 

"P. M. Started at seven o'clock for an islet in the center of a deep 
bay, round which the land rises to moderate elevation; found the islet 
to be an oval ridge of gravel, its longest diameter about a quarter of a 
mile. Its most elevated part is to seaward and about 40 feet high, all 
within is a lagoon. Found here small fragments of driftwood, no tide 
crack or ice pressure. 

"17th June. After taking bearings, etc., here, we traveled 7 or 8 miles 
to the next extreme of land, on rounding which we saw several islands 
forming a chain a few miles offshore; these keep off the heavy polar 
pack, and within them we have ordinary old floe, but having much less 
snow upon it all the hummocks being bare . . . Encamped at a quarter 
before five o'clock. 

"The land is of a more considerable height; in some places a mile 
or two inland, it may be 150 feet high; and the sand-heaps are now con- 
fined to the depths of bays and inner points of the islands. We had 
not been long in our bags before a heavy gale came on, bringing drift 
and thickly falling snow in its train. 

"P. M. The weather is worse if possible, we cannot advance against 
this gale not being able to see our way, nor will we retreat before it. 
It is very mortifying to be thus arrested within one march of our ex- 
treme, and to be unable to get a glimpse at the coast beyond that which 
we have actually walked to; to-morrow we must commence our retreat. 
The little sledge turned up on its side forms the weather end of our 
hurricane house; one end of a ridge pole rests upon it, the other end 
on my compass stand. The sledge's sail thrown over this affords us 
shelter on three sides, and here we sit anxiously watching the weather, 
and catching in our spoons the drops which penetrate the canvas. On 
this sand-heap there are many small fragments of decayed wood, and 
I have no doubt there is some of larger size and more recent importation 
on the outer islands, but now of course hidden by snow. 

"18th June. Towards noon the weather began to improve. 

"P. M. I had intended walking a few miles further, but the weather 
became too thick, so we reluctantly commenced our return at half-past 
six. Left a cairn and record on a point near our encampment, then 
crossed overland into Satellite Bay." (Report of Captain F. L. Kc- 
Clintock as published in "Further Papers Relating to the Recent Arctic 
Expeditions in Search of Sir John Franklin," London, 1855, pp. 570-571.) 

Such was the weather and such were the difficulties recorded 
by McClintock June 16, 1853, and the days just before and 



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THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 315 

after. An entry from my diary for June 16, 1915, completes and 
resembles the picture. 

"June 16. Storkerson keeps the record and I seldom note the 
weather (in this diary) but I have never seen anything like it 
for clouds, snow and fog — only two partly clear days since we 
landed (on Prince Patrick Island), snow nearly every day and 
no shadows (cast by anything) so that dark objects are the only 
ones visible." 

Again I would recall that to those who have not been in some 
country resembling the Arctic it may seem incredible that in day- 
light so intense that the eyes have to be protected against it, objects 
not of dark color should frequently be invisible. McClintock 
points out above that a snowclad hill with thawed ground on top 
does not appear as a white hill with a black top, but only as a 
black horizontal line apparently suspended in the sky. This is 
because the daylight on cloudy days is so evenly diffused that no 
shadows are cast. A snowclad hill does not loom against the 
clouded sky but blends with the background so well that when a 
man is seen to walk behind such a hill his legs disappear without 
visible cause of eclipse and then his whole body. You infer the 
hill that conceals him but you cannot see it. A snag of ice will be 
equally invisible until you stub your toe against it, though it may 
show then by contrast with your foot. That is the whole point 
— there are no contrasts on such a day. There are no shadows. 
And so you can see only dark things, or light things that are in 
close proximity to dark. 

In view of the circumstances under which McClintock and we 
alike had to work it was not surprising that we had difficulty in 
making our map of the day correspond with his map of his ^'farth- 
est." But we felt we had completed the gap between him and 
Mecham — that our comma island was a period to the story of 
our linking up the work of our predecessors and making the out- 
line of Prince Patrick Island complete. We should have built a 
cairn and left a record here had we been able to find anything 
beyond gravel out of which to build it. 

In outfitting the Karluk I had provided her library with those 
of the British Parliamentary Blue Books which contain the route 
maps and diaries of the sledge parties of the Franklin Search — 
one containing the diaries and surveys of McClintock and Mecham. 
These documents had gone with the Karluk and through lack of 
them I did not know that we were now in the vicinity of one of 
McClintock's cairns. We always looked around with the binocu- 



316 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

lars as well as the weather allowed, and probably the reason we 
saw no cairn was that it had been built of materials which had 
not withstood weathering. 

June 4th we traveled north only about four miles and then 
camped at the west end of another island, oblong with the main 
axis east and west, about two miles long and 100 feet high. The 
day was cut short because while I was exploring some deep bights 
to the eastward the men saw several seals scattered on the ice. 
We had five days' provisions on the sledges, so that by ordinary 
rule no halt for hunting should have been made before camp 
time. But we had been talking much lately of the unwisdom of one 
man always doing the hunting. Were he to get sick the others 
might have undue trouble in getting food for themselves and him. 
Through my greatest experience and our desire to save both time 
and ammunition, I had so far done all the sealing on the ice; seal- 
ing in the water needs no training and all had had their share of 
that. Now that several seals were scattered about in ideal hunting 
weather the men concluded the psychological moment for practice 
had arrived. So, much to my wonder — I was watching them with 
glasses six or eight miles away — they camped, thereafter going 
off in different directions, each after his own seal. 

Crawling up to seals sleeping on the ice is simple in theory and 
easy to describe. But as often happens to those who learn by 
precept, one may think he understands every detail and find on 
trial that he does not. So it turned out now. Although Storker- 
son, Thomsen and Ole all had excellent explanations when they 
came home, none had a seal. Thomsen, who was a very deter- 
mined chap, later stayed up all night while the rest of us slept, 
making fresh attempts. He had a good appetite for breakfast next 
morning but no fresh seal meat to satisfy it. But I must say that 
when once he did secure his first seal, some days later, Thomsen 
seldom failed thereafter. 

On this island were stones fit for making a cairn, although small 
and not abundant. Thomsen built a beacon two or three feet 
high and I wrote to deposit in it a ''record" giving the latitude and 
longitude and describing in about a hundred words our journey up 
to that point. There was also a forecast of what we should do 
the remainder of the season. 

As we approached the north end of Prince Patrick Island we 
felt we were coming into more intimate touch with the tragic 
occasion for the explorations we were now completing. Our pred- 
ecessors, who over sixty years ago had mapped all but a little 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 317 

of this coast, were not mainly concerned, as we were, with adding 
to geographic and other knowledge. They did great things in that 
field incidentally, but only incidentally, for their main purpose 
was humanitarian. They were searching for the Erebus and 
Terror and the 119 lost men of Sir John Franklin's company. 
We know now that Franklin's men were all dead long before Mc- 
Clintock came to Prince Patrick Island in what was for the time 
a vain search. It was McClintock, however, who on a later expe- 
dition finally brought to light, a long way to the south and east of 
this his farthest north, the main events of the Franklin tragedy. 
Many of its details are still unknown. 

Naturally as we approached the cape named after McClin- 
tock and the turning point of his search for the lost explorers, 
we began to talk and think more about the heroic adventures and 
accomplishments of that time, the traditions of which gave inter- 
est to every point of land as it came in view. And we tried to 
identify each with some landmark shown and named on Mc- 
Clintock's map. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

WE REACH MCCLINTOCk's FARTHEST 

ON the afternoon of June 15th we had evidently come to the 
north end of Prince Patrick Island. The two islets ahead 
were clearly those shown on the Admiralty chart just north- 
west of Cape McClintock. There was food for only a day or two in 
our sledges so we headed for one of these islands as a good vantage 
point from which to spy out seals. While my companions were 
pitching camp, I climbed the fifteen or twenty-foot cutbank of the 
island and looked around. There were three or four seals sun- 
ning themselves on the ice, so the food problem was by way of 
being solved once more. I then turned the glasses to the east. 

On the tip of the land, just where I expected that McClintock 
might have built a cairn, I saw a low, round heap so placed as to 
suggest a work of man. Then I walked two miles across from the 
island to the mainland and found the remains of a monument. 
Probably the beacon was originally conspicuous, though now it 
was only a rounded heap not much over a foot high. It was com- 
posed in part of earth, in part of gravel and then of a few stones. 
There was one slab of 8x12x16 inches, and one stone the size of 
a pound loaf of bread. The rest were smaller, and all were half- 
embedded in the sand and gravel. 

On removing the stones I found a papier mache cylinder similar 
in size to an ordinary shotgun shell, except a bit longer. With 
this I returned to camp. 

I got home about midnight, to learn by exactly what perversity 
of nature each hunter had again been prevented from getting the 
seal he went after. But another day was coming and these trials 
of a hunter were soon forgotten in our interest in the McClintock 
record. First we discussed how the cylinder should be opened, 
and settled on cutting off one end with a penknife. With the three 
others watching I did this very delicately, lest the document be 
mutilated. But it came out in marvelous condition, considering 
that the sealing of the tube with sealing-wax had not been quite 
tight. 

318 



I 



\ 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 319 

There was a thrill about unrolling that damp and fragile sheet 
and reading the message from our great predecessor which had been 
lying there awaiting us more than half a century. We felt it as 
marvelous that his steady hand was so legible after so long a time. 
It brought the past down to us, quite as wonderfully as it did for 
me five years later to talk in London with McClintock's wife, 
still hale and charming, and with his sons, and to be shown the 
manuscript diary of the day he wrote this message. 

The record was on the ordinary printing paper of that time, 
and the message had in part been printed at the Dealy Island 
winter base before the party started on their western journey, in 
part written in red ink at the base, and in part entered by Mc- 
Clintock in pencil just before the record was deposited. The print 
was legible and so was the pencil writing, but the red ink had faded 
badly. I noted in my journal that while I should continue keeping 
my diary with a fountain pen for the sake of clearness, I should 
write in pencil any records I wanted to deposit. 

The record follows, the print denoted by ordinary type and the 
writing in italics. 

^'Cylinder buried 10 feet true north from this cairn : None* 

Traces: None found** 

Party. All well. Have examined this shore to the southeastward for 
ahout 150 miles. The sledge is now returning to the SE preparatory 
to crossing to Melville Island. I am ahout to proceed to the westwa/rd 
with a light sledge and two men for three marches, and will then return 
after the main party and make the best of my way to Pt. Nias and 
Dealy Island.*** 

F. L. McC LIN TOOK, 

15th June, P. M. 

"/ have searched the islands and reefs lying offshore to the northward." 

*It was a rule in the expeditions of the Franklin Search that any 
party finding a monument were to dig in the ground ten feet true north to 
look for a message unobtrusively buried. This was for fear of Eskimos in 
inhabited lands who might remove any message frankly left in the cairn. 

** Traces of Sir John Frankhn's Party. 

*** McClintock made this exploration from his and Kellett's base at 
Dealy Island. The journey lasted 105 days (April 5 to July 18), and was 
estimated by McClintock at 1,030 geographical miles. Except the similar 
journey of Mecham from the same base to Prince Patrick Island simul- 
taneously with McClintock's, it was far the best arctic journey with sledges 
up to that time. It has frequently been called "the greatest of all arctic 
journeys." Cf. Sir Qements Markham, "Life of Admiral J^IcClintock," p. 166. 



320 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

On the reverse of the sheet was the following, chiefly in print: 

"Record, deposited 15th June, 1863, by a Sledge party from H.M.S. 
Intrepid. Parties searching the NW, NE, SW & East coasts of Melville 
Island and Banksland for the Expeditions under Sir John Franklin & Capt. 
Collinson. 

"At Beechey Island: H.M.S. North Star, also Depot, House, Decked 
boat. 

"Port Leopold, Depot, House and Steam Launch. 

"Navy Board Inlet— Depot. 

"Dealy Island (Bridport Inlet) H.M.S. Resolute and Steamer Intrepid 
the winter of 1852-53. All well: Will deposit depot, Boat, Sledges, &c. 
H.M.S. Assistance, and Steamer Pioneer went up Wellington Channel 1852 
H.M.S. Investigator wintered north side of Banksland in long. 118° W. 
1851-52. All well (learnt from her record left at Winter Harbour April 1852; 
and found October, 1852. 

''F. L. McCLINTOCK, 
"Ofl&cer Commanding Party." 

(The following in red ink in another hand) : 

"Commander . . . winter at Point Barrow if practicable; but is to send a 
. . . at Grantly Harbour and at Michaelowski Redoubt." 

It is a matter of curious interest that this record is dated "P. 
M., June 15, 1853," and that I picked it up at 9:58 P. M. local 
apparent time, June 15, 1915, just sixty-two years later to the 
nearest half day. 

In the original manuscript diary shown me in London by 
McClintock's son, Mr. H. F. McClintock, there is no reference to 
the placing of this record in the cairn. In the diary as published 
in the Blue Book we find in the account of the return from Mc- 
Clintock's farthest the following entry under date of June 20th: 
"Passed our encampment of June 15th at seven o'clock and en- 
camped at eight beside the cairn. . . . Placed a record in the cairn." 

All of McClintock's polar work, and indeed his whole career, 
shows that no man could have been more truthful or scrupulously 
honest. Yet we find him here apparently contradicting himself. 
His published diary says he placed the record in the cairn June 
20th on his return from the west. But the record itself, in his 
indubitable handwriting, is dated "15th June, P. M." and speaks 
of the journey to the west as in the future. ("I am about to 
proceed to the westward.") 

Evidently what happened was this: He wrote the record on 
June 15th and gave it to the men whom he had detailed to build the 
cairn before they started back towards Melville Island. Then 
he proceeded west before the others had built it. On his way 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 321 

back he visited it. At no time did he think of entering in his 
diary the fact that he had written a record to be deposited in it. 
Some two years later, when his memory of the less important de- 
tails of the trip had become hazy, he was preparing his diary for 
the press. He then recalled having left a record at the north end 
of Prince Patrick Island, and his memory played him the trick 
of making a thing that had happened on the advance journey seem 
to have happened on the return. Or else he wrote the record on 
June 15th but carried it with him to his farthest west, depositing 
it only on the return journey. 

I have dwelt on this trivial discrepancy, apparent or real, be- 
tween two statements exactly because their author cannot be 
suspected of either untruthfulness or carelessness. What I intend 
is to point out how errors will creep in. I have no doubt that a 
keen critic can find such discrepancies and perhaps more serious 
ones either in this book or between it and something else I have 
written. But I hope that every such discrepancy is open to a rea- 
sonably charitable interpretation. 

After we had reread and talked over the McClintock record we 
composed the following document for the next explorer who comes 
along. Surely it will remain in the cairn much less than sixty-two 
years. I hope so, otherwise he who uncovers it will fail to find 
anything legible. McClintock had brought with him for the pur- 
pose the papier mache tubes which have preserved his messages so 
admirably; we had nothing intended for a similar service and had 
to use tin cans. I did not enter in my diary the exact way this 
record was packed, except to say that the outer covering was a 
two-pound tin that once contained coffee. Inside I think the slip 
of paper was first wrapped in more paper and then put in a small 
Burroughs-Wellcome tabloid tea-box: 

COPY OF RECORD 

"P. M. June 16, 1915. 
"A sled party of the Canadian Arctic Expedition H.K.C.S. Mary 
Sachs are camped on the island which bears 192° magnetic from this 
point, distant two miles. From that island I saw a cairn at this point 
(Cape McClintock) and walked over, arriving at the cairn at 9:58 P. M. 
June 15th, local apparent time. On top the sand under the stones I 
found a record form of the Franklin Search containing printed informa- 
tion as to ships, depots, rescue operations, etc., some illegible writing in 
ink and the below in pencil, well preserved : (Print is underscored in 
the following.) 



322 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

(Here follows copy of pencil part of McClintock's record) 

"I am taking the original records to be stored or otherwise suitably 
disposed of by the Department of Naval Service of Canada, and am 
leaving this copy in a cairn built of the same stones on the same spot. 

"Our party consists of these members of the Canadian Arctic Ex- 
pedition: S. Storkerson, O. Andreasen, C. Thomson and V. Stefansson. 
We left the winter quarters of the Mary Sachs on Banks Island Febru- 
ary 20, 1915, and Cape Alfred April 5th, reached farthest west at sea 
in about W. Long. 131° and farthest north in N. Lat. 76° 40'. Were 
driven south again by contrary currents, landed on Prince Patrick Island 
in IsT. Lat. 76° 09.' approx. and have followed the coast, mapping the 
unexplored part as well as our means and continual thick weather al- 
lowed. Intend to proceed a few miles beyond Ireland's Eye, thence SE 
and S across Melville Island and Banks Island to the winter quarters 
of the expedition. We are living on seals and burning blubber. Men 
all well and gear in good condition. 

"Expect to leave the camp on the island the forenoon of June 17th, 
following the floe edge north beyond Ireland's Eye." 

This document was signed by all of us. 



One of McClintock's claims to preeminence among arctic travel- 
ers is that he was among the first to realize the possibility of 
lengthening his journeys both in time and mileage through hunting. 
Still it may be fairly said that several of his young contemporaries 
of the Franklin Search were brought by similar facts to the same 
conclusion equally early — for instance, Mecham,* Osborn and Bed- 
ford Pim. 

In the summary of his journey to Prince Patrick Island Mc- 
Clintock says, "We were most fortunate in securing game, which 
enabled us to remain out ten days longer than I otherwise could 
have done." ** Turning to the table he publishes, we see that he 
secured in Prince Patrick Island during forty-six days spent there 
three polar cattle, five caribou, one hare, two geese and nine ptar- 
migan. These would not have enabled him to lengthen his journey 
by ten per cent.; what enabled him was the meat of cattle and 

* Mecham appreciated game both because it enabled him to lengthen his 
journeys and because of the excellent effect upon the health of his men. On 
page 523 of "Further Papers Relative to the Recent Arctic Expeditions in 
Search of Sir John Franklin," London, 1855, he says, ''It is to me very 
evident that without occasional supplies of game, a long journey would be 
a very doubtful experiment." 

** Op. cit., p. 585. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 323 

caribou killed before leaving Melville Island on the outward journey, 
and after reaching it on his way home. 

But he goes on to say:* "But no fuel of any kind could be 
got (in Prince Patrick Island)." This brings out strikingly what 
it would have meant to him had some one in his party understood 
sealing. In his table of "Animals Seen" he notes eighteen seals, 
none of which could be killed. A good seal hunter should have 
secured at least twelve of them, yielding 600 to 900 pounds of blub- 
ber, about equal in heat value to that much of the fuel McClintock 
had brought from his ship to last for over a hundred days. In 
other words, these seals represented more fuel than he used on his 
whole journey, fuel which could have been picked up along the 
way when needed instead of being laboriously hauled by man-power 
through hundreds of miles of soft snow. And if McClintock, when 
he was not particularly looking for seals, saw eighteen, he would 
have seen many times that number had he been depending on 
them. 

It does seem a pity that progress has to be so slow. If the men 
of the Franklin Search could only have rid themselves wholly, as 
McClintock did in part, of the idea that the Arctic is insufficiently 
stocked with food and fuel, it would have changed the whole aspect 
of the Search. A few score young men needed only to spend sev- 
eral months learning native Eskimo methods of hunting, house- 
building, etc. — they did not have to learn how to burn seal oil, 
for seal oil is but train oil, which they already knew how to burn 
for it was commonly used for light in those days. Then they could 
have traveled where they needed to travel, comfortable, well-fed 
and safe. 

And if the idea of the barrenness of the Arctic could have been 
shed a decade earlier there would have been no Franklin Search, 
for Franklin's men would not have starved to death, as we now 
know they did, in a region where game is abundant.** 

* "Further Papers Relative to the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search 
of Sir John Franklin," p. 585. 

** I have said something of this sort before and a critic has replied under 
three heads: (1) "He who says Franklin's men could have lived by hunting 
overlooks the terrible handicap of numbers"— but the crews could have scat- 
tered in small parties; also Eskimos sometimes live in parties more numerous 
than Franklin's crews. (2) "Eskimos are skilled hunters, but Englishmen 
are not," — but I have seen young boys from cities become expert sealers in 
a few weeks. (3) "Franklin's men were weakened by scurvy," — but they 
would have had no scurvy had they lived on fresh game. (On the last head see 
m;/ article on scurvy in the "Journal of the American Medical Association," 
November 23, 1918). 



CHAPTER XXXIII 



THE DISCOVERY OF NEW LAND 



JUNE 17th, after directing the men to proceed straight north 
all day if traveling conditions allowed, I left camp while they 
were hitching up the dogs, walked two miles southeast to 
Cape McClintock, rebuilt the cairn and put in it our record to 
replace the one we had found. Then I struck north, having pre- 
viously seen that our teams were already on their northward way 
to the west of me. 

I walked first to the nearest of McClintock's "Polynia Islands." 
He has not told us why he named them so. Of itself the name is a 
monument to one of the respected dead among polar theories. I 
have heard that the word is of Russian origin and refers to an 
open water space among ice. But as applied in the polar specula- 
tion of McClintock's time it signified the open spaces that were 
thought to exist permanently ice-free in the most northern lati- 
tudes. The largest of these open spaces was supposed to be around 
the Pole. There was much high authority back of this idea in 
the schools and among scientists. Especially there was the weighty 
German geographer, Petermann. Some even thought they had seen 
the thing itself and so proved it — for instance, the American ex- 
plorer Hayes, who made of his observations and beliefs a book 
called "The Open Polar Sea." 

Walking towards the islands I wondered if McClintock's men 
had perhaps seen water-sky to the northwest of them and assumed 
it hung over a "polynia." I could see water-sky in that direction, 
but I knew it was merely our friend the "shore lead," open now 
temporarily because of the wind. On the, second and largest 
Polynia Island I must have walked within a hundred yards of 
one of McClintock's records — I know it now from seeing his diary, 
but at that time I did not think he would have left one so near 
to the other which we had already found. 

Beyond the big Polynia Island I had no difficulty in recognizing 
the "reefs lying to the northward" mentioned in the record we had 
found and shown on the Admiralty chart we carried. McClintock 

324 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 325 

in his manuscript diary, I now know, refers to them as "three 
reefs," and three they were and there they were. But about "Ire- 
land's Eye" I could not be so certain, for there were several more 
"reefs" of the same sort. Later, however, we identified tentatively 
as Ireland's Eye an island lying a good deal farther from Mc- 
Clintock's three reefs than the chart indicated and more to the 
east. At least it appears a real island from a distance; the ones 
lying more nearly where the chart puts Ireland's Eye are mere 
ridges of gravel scraped up from the shallow sea bottom by the 
plowing of wind-driven ice. 

So far as McClintock's records are concerned, Ireland's Eye is 
mysterious. His diary as printed in the Parliamentary Blue 
Books has no hint of such a place. His manuscript diary contains 
certain notes that have been omitted from the published version or 
else altered. But I have had opportunity to examine this manu- 
script carefully and have found no reference to Ireland's Eye 
nor even compass bearings leading in that direction. At one time 
we did think we had found something referring to it, but this was 
later clearly identified as the little unnamed island which appears 
on the Admiralty chart as about twenty miles straight south of 
Ireland's Eye. In the manuscript map the line of the heavy pack 
ice is indicated as curving north of the three reefs, which appear 
exactly as they do on the Admiralty chart. The published chart 
does not reproduce this line of heavy ice, but if it were transferred 
there it would curve around north of Ireland's Eye. From this one 
might conclude that Ireland's Eye is one of the reefs noted by us in 
about this position. 

Yet Ireland's Eye on the Admiralty chart is evidently intended 
to be something more than a reef, for the south side of it is marked 
plainly while the north side is dotted in, indicating that the extent 
of the land was unknown. It is this feature which makes us 
identify it, provisionally, not with one of the reefs but with an 
island we saw lying considerably to the east. 

It occurred to me that Ireland's Eye might have been reported 
by some of the men whom McClintock detached to send towards 
Melville Island at the time when he with two companions proceeded 
westward from Cape McClintock. We were able to find in the 
diary a summary of the report of these men when he overtook 
them, but no mention of their having seen any land previously 
not noted by McClintock. I have appealed in this connection 
to the Royal Geographical Society, but a search through all records 
available to them leads only to the same results: Ireland's Eye 



326 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

is upon the map but no one knows whence it came or how it 
got there. 

From the west end of the largest of McClintock's Polynia 
Islands I could see the sledges to the northwest traveling along 
steadily and leaving me farther and farther behind, for I spent 
a great deal of time in taking cross bearings not only of the islands 
laid down by McClintock to verify their position, but also of 
several islands or reefs which he had not seen. Apparently we 
were more fortunate than he had been in the conditions of visibil- 
ity; indeed this was one of the best days we had in the vicinity 
of Prince Patrick Island. Although the sky was mainly clouded 
one could see a considerable distance, and sufficient light came from 
one quarter of the sky so that shadows enough were cast to make 
even white objects visible. 

I traveled about fifteen miles a trifle east of north from Cape 
McClintock when I saw the men making camp about five miles 
north. They had been compelled to turn slightly to the eastward 
because of the trend of the shore floe, which was reflected in the 
sky as a dark streak and which showed its presence not far away 
by the roughness of the ice. 

It becomes second nature after long years of hunting in the 
North to spend much time in examining from any available emi- 
nence every part of the landscape. I was on the top of a hum- 
ndock twenty or thirty feet high and had already taken bearings 
of every landmark in sight. Prince Patrick Island to the south had 
disappeared, either because it was low or because the conditions 
of visibility were not so good in that direction. But I could still see 
the islands just northwest of Cape McClintock from which we had 
started that morning. I next turned the glasses to the west, exam- 
ining the region of the shore floe for possible seals. Polar bears 
I was not expecting, for we had not seen the tracks of a single one 
since landing at the southeast corner of Prince Patrick Island, and 
seals were not likely to be out at this time of night — about two in 
the morning of June 18th. Seals may lie on the ice twelve or 
fifteen or even twenty hours but they will usually go down for a 
feed somewhere around midnight. That they go down in search 
of food after their long basking periods is reasonable on the face 
of it. We have direct evidence also. When a seal is killed in the 
early morning after he has just come up on the ice we usually 
find in his stomach undigested and partly digested shrimps and 
other Crustacea. 

I did not see any seals, and I had already been examining the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 327 

horizon to the eastward in connection with taking the bearings 
of the scattered reefs and islands. I next turned to the north 
where undiscovered land seemed most likely to lie. Nothing could 
be seen on the horizon, but our camp was in the line of vision and 
I noted what was going on. 

The tent was up — we had long since ceased using snowhouses 
on account of the mild weather — and the dogs had been tied. 
Thomsen was feeding them. Ole was not in sight and must be in 
the tent cooking. This meant that he had decided to use up our 
last kerosene. One evening many weeks before we had discovered 
only a remaining quart or so of kerosene and it had been decided 
to save this for an emergency when bad weather made it more com- 
fortable to cook within doors. Kerosene has the great advantage 
over seal oil that when one has the ordinary commercial stove it 
produces no smoke, while the highest art is required to burn seal 
oil without smoke. But a day or two ago somebody had noticed 
that half the cherished kerosene had been spilled, as the container 
was not quite tight at the top. This meant not only loss of fuel 
but worse, for any oil that was spilling was getting into our cloth- 
ing and into other things we were hauling. Trying to save it was 
less a convenience than a nuisance. 

Presently I moved the glasses one field to the west and noted 
that Storkerson was climbing an ice hummock. Evidently I could 
borrow his eyes by watching him, for he had the advantage of me 
by five miles of northing and would be able to see things that lay 
below my horizon. If there were anything of note I should be 
able to tell it from his actions. It is easy to say now and I can 
almost make myself believe that I had a premonition of what he 
was going to see. Still I know that such was not really the case. 
I had often before watched my companions from a distance as I 
was doing now to form an opinion of what they were seeing. 

Storkerson sat down on the top of the hummock, took his glasses 
from their case and spent several minutes in wiping every lens of 
them with our unfailing piece of clean flannel, then raised his elbows 
on his knees in the ordinary way and turned his glasses to the north. 
Evidently he saw nothing in the first field nor in the second or 
third, for during the next four or five minutes he moved the glasses 
farther and farther east until he was facing northeast. Instead 
of examining this field as he had done the others he swung the 
glasses slowly into east and then into southeast, following some- 
thing that was very plain and needed no careful scrutiny. With 
the glasses still at his eyes he then made a movement which I in- 



328 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

terpreted to mean that he was shouting, and when I turned my 
glasses on the camp Ole was scrambling out of the tent and Thom- 
sen had stopped his dog feeding and was looking at Storkerson. 
A moment later both of them started towards him on the run. 

This could mean only one thing — a new land a great deal larger 
than any of the scattered islands we had been seeing all day. I 
stood up on my hummock and looked carefully from northeast to 
east but nothing could be seen but the level horizon. The greater 
height of Storkerson's hummock and the five-mile advantage in 
position accounted for the difference. 

Now I started for the camp — that I did not run was a matter 
of deliberate intent. That a big new land could actually have been 
found seemed too good to be true. The behavior of Storkerson 
and the others was open to no other logical interpretation, but I 
decided to pretend to be illogical for the moment, attempting to 
guard against a possible reaction. 

But Storkerson came to meet me along the sled trail, which he 
never would have done under ordinary circumstances, while Thom- 
sen and Ole had opened up the sled loads which had already been 
covered and lashed for the night. This I understood also, for they 
were Norwegians and Norwegians are the greatest people in the 
world for celebrating every conceivable happening by some sort 
of feast. Evidently they were hunting for something special to 
eat and I knew what it would be. There was a big packing box 
which had formerly contained biscuits but in which we had for a 
long time been carrying something else. There were a few biscuit 
crumbs in the corners and so it had to be emptied of the goods 
packed in it and these crumbs scraped together. The saving of the 
crumbs had been accidental but we had saved deliberately a little 
malted milk on the theory that somebody might get sick, though 
it is almost inconceivable in such work, done under such disease- 
forbidding conditions, that any one in normal health should lose 
it. I always feel hoarding food as a mental strain, and for 
that reason I was delighted when I found that Ole had the milk 
boiling. 

We first went up on the hummock, all of us, and took turns in 
looking at the new land. It lay indubitable along the horizon from 
northeast to east by north, but no straining of the eye could reveal 
any land farther north or farther south. After careful compass 
bearings and a sketch of the sky line, we went into the tent and 
celebrated with a sort of stew or soup made of the malted milk and 
the crumbs. I don't think any of us considered this a better meal 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 329 

than seal meat, but it was different. We had therefore some of the 
psychological elements of a celebration. 

We slept less than usual because of the excitement, and at five 
in the afternoon of June 18th started towards the land. After 
about a mile and a half a seal hole appeared which gave opportunity 
for sounding. The depth was 69 fathoms and there was a strong 
current running a little west of north. There must be a fairly 
deep strait between our new land and Prince Patrick Island, for 
otherwise the current could scarcely have had such force. This 
is our only evidence for thinking that the strait may be deep ; apart 
from that we would suppose it to be shallow, for certainly it is 
studded with islands and reefs. 

Seven and a half miles ENE from camp we came to one of the 
gravel islands that form a sort of chain from Prince Patrick Island 
to our new land. Their position may be more accurately indicated 
by saying that a line drawn through them would be tangent to the 
west sides both of Prince Patrick Island and the new land. 

It is about five miles from this particular islet to the mainland. 
The sleds landed about straight east of it, but I walked more to 
the north, for in that direction was the highest visible hill. I had 
great hopes of what I might see from the top of this hill, but by 
the time I got there the regular half fog had descended again. I 
could see little black dots and horizontal black lines which ap- 
peared as if they were floating in the sky but which I knew to 
be the tops of hills from which the sun had removed the snow. 
Under such conditions not much that is profitable can be learned, 
and the only significant thing was the trend of the water sky, which 
was running a little west of north to a distance which I estimated 
by the elevation of the black reflection in the sky at about fifteen 
miles. To be able to see so little on the first day was disappoint- 
ing but we hoped for better things to-morrow. 

The hope was disappointed, for the morrow came cloudy and 
obscure. We should have liked to remain in camp here long 
enough for the sun to come out so that we might locate exactly 
both in latitude and longitude the spot of our landing. But summer 
was advancing so rapidly and the need of returning to the base 
at Kellett had become so pressing that we did not dare to wait. 
There was also the palliating circumstance that we had been 
able to secure good observations at our island base near Cape Mc- 
Clintock, and that on the march north on the 17th and again to 
the new land on the 18th we had been able to take many compass 
observations, both direct and cross bearings, so that we thought our 



330 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

estimates would not be out as to either latitude or longitude by 
more than two miles at the most. 

We got up early in the morning of the 19th — ordinarily we were 
sleeping daytimes and traveling at night^ — and were able to secure 
an indifferent time sight, for the sun was faintly visible through 
clouds. But at noon we got no latitude sight and in the afternoon 
no confirmatory time sight. We could not wait longer. 

Before leaving we heaped up gravel into a mound three or four 
feet high and placed in it the following record: 

''June 20, 2 A. M. 
"This land was first seen, so far as I know, by Storker Storkerson 
of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, June 18, 1915, at 2 A. M. from a 
point on the ice distant from the cairn where this record is left about 
fourteen miles due west (true). From an ice cake about 40 ft. high, 
land was seen extending from E x N to NE x E. The first man to land 
here was Ole Andreasen of the same Expedition at 1 :50 A. M. June 19th. 
"By authority especially vested in me for that purpose, I have to-day 
hoisted the flag of the Empire and have taken possession of the land 
in the name of His Majesty King George V on behalf of the Dominion 
of Canada. 

"Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 

"Commander, 
"Canadian Arctic Expedition, 

"Witnesses: Storker Storkerson, Ole Andreasen, Karl Thomsen." 

"Party, dogs (13) and equipment, all well. Shall proceed eastward 
along this coast some distance, should it prove extensive, and then south 
across or around Melville Island to the Expedition headquarters near 
Cape Kellett, Banks Island. 

V. Stefansson." 



CHAPTER XXXIV 



EXPLORING THE NEW LAND 



WHERE we landed first the coast line is made up generally 
of rounded gravel banks, few of them more than ten or 
fifteen feet high, and on my walk inland the first day I 
estimated that the rise of land even in the direction of the most 
conspicuous hill was not more than fifty feet to the mile. 

A little earlier in the year we should undoubtedly have trav- 
eled north along the west coast of our land, but the need of return- 
ing to our base decided us upon a course in the other direction. 
After waiting vainly through the whole day of June 19th for the 
sun to peep out and give a chance for an observation, we took a 
little nap in the evening and at three in the morning started south- 
eastward following the coast. At first it was cloudy with the con- 
ditions of visibility not quite as bad as the worst we were used 
to. About all we learned concerning the land at first was that the 
coast gets gradually a little higher, but as the day advanced we 
began to see both the coast line ahead and some islands to the 
southwest, notably the one which we have identified as Ireland's 
Eye and which we judge to be about ten miles from the coast. 
About northeast of Ireland's Eye the weather cleared enough for 
us to make sure of being in the mouth of a bay. It was still hazy 
inland so that we were not equally sure of our supposition that this 
bay is the mouth of a river. 

What interested us most about the land were the various signs 
of life, both vegetable and animal. We saw no driftwood, possibly 
because the beach was heavily covered with snow. Nevertheless 
from our general knowledge of this vicinity we are prepared to 
believe that there is very little. On the land was grass in some 
places and lichens and mosses were in others, but what was more 
convincing in this respect was the great nmnber of caribou tracks 
preserved in the mud from the previous summer. We all agreed 
that in no part of Banks Island had we ever seen caribou tracks 
so numerous. From the fact that no horns were found we deduced 
that the bulls are not here in January nor the cows in May, those 

331 



332 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

being the shedding periods for adults of the two sexes. Later, 
however, in other parts of this land we found caribou horns, so we 
know it was mere accident that none were noted the first summer. 
Caribou, then, are in these islands at all seasons. The caribou 
traces seen that first day were mainly from the months of June 
and July of the previous year, as we could tell by the size of the 
footprints of the newborn caribou. There were no large footprints. 
From this we inferred that the country is generally rocky, for hoofs 
are large when caribou feed in swampy territory and are worn down 
smaller the rougher and stonier their pasture. 

In walking about we noticed a lemming running over the 
ground. One of our dogs named Hans was known for the gingerly 
way in which he killed lemmings. Indeed whenever he killed small 
animals he did it in such a way as not to injure the skin and to 
leave it in good condition for the zoologist. We had just turned 
Hans loose but he had not yet seen the lemming when an ivory gull 
appeared suddenly from nowhere and stooped towards it: Fearful 
of losing the lemming, we all shouted and ran towards the gull. 
Our action may have been the cause or it may be their regular 
habit, but this gull gave the lemming one peck in passing, leaving 
it paralyzed though not dead, and then flew away as if she had no 
concern either with the lemming or with us. Foxes have a habit 
of killing lemmings and leaving them behind if they don't happen 
to be hungry and it is possible that gulls have a similar habit. We 
later found on examining the nests of the ivory gulls, not only those 
occupied at the time but also remnants of the nests of other years, 
that they feed on lemmings; indeed, it is likely that in these lati- 
tudes in the early spring the lemming is their only food. 

During the entire time we spent on the new land caribou traces 
continued to appear more numerous than on Banks Island. The 
only animals seen, however, were two bulls and these were ob- 
served only through the glasses at a distance of seven or eight 
miles. We were picking up seals right in our road and did not 
care to bother to go after caribou far inland and out of the way. 
No traces of cattle were on the mainland although we later found 
one ancient and decayed skull on the island to the south which we 
have named Eight Bears Island. Lemming signs were in most 
places numerous and the exgorgitations of owls indicated that at 
certain seasons they are there to feed on the lemmings. On June 
19th a jaeger gull appeared and on June 21st four more. Besides 
ivory gulls there were others of a larger variety, perhaps the Barrow 
gull, and there were a good many snow buntings and longspurs. 




^^ 




A Young Owl on the Arctic Prairie. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 333 

We saw no ptarmigan although two years later one flock was ob- 
served in the same island. And we saw no Hutchins geese but 
found their feathers here and there, and later observations showed 
that they nest both here and farther north. Of seals we saw about 
a dozen per day. Most of these, however, were seen only through 
the field glasses and a party traveling along the coast might easily 
fail to see any for several days at a time if no pains were taken 
to look for them. 

We saw no hares nor do I remember seeing any traces of them 
later. Foxes did not appear to be numerous as compared, for in- 
stance, with Banks Island. Polar bears while not absent are evi- 
dently exceedingly rare. On all our visits to this neighborhood in 
succeeding years we never saw a bear, but in 1916 we found in the 
frozen mud near the west coast the tracks of a bear that had been 
there the previous summer. Only two wolves were actually seen 
on this first visit but their traces were numerous, as had to be 
the case where caribou were so plentiful. 

There has been much talk about the wisdom of foxes. In 
ancient fables and modern nature-faking alike they are invariably 
wise. Possibly the southern fox is by nature more intelligent than 
his arctic cousin or it may be that experience has taught him more 
through a dangerous environment. But the verdict must be 
that in the North foxes are stupid, or trustful if you prefer that 
point of view. A fox that sees you is very likely to come up to 
examine you more closely. If he finds your trail he may follow 
it till he catches up and if he is a young fox he may run ahead and 
in circles around you for miles, barking like a toy dog at a pedes- 
trian. It is remarkable that they should be so foolish for they are 
continually when on land in danger from the wolves that snap 
them up as an appetizer before breakfast. 

It would seem reasonable that wolves would not be afraid of 
any living thing they find, for in reality their only danger arises 
from failure to find something. They can run faster than all 
animals that are more powerful, and they are more powerful than 
any animal that can run faster. This would make it probable that 
a wolf would come running up frankly to any animal he sees, for 
he has a right to conclude that if the animal is dangerous he will 
be able to avoid it easily. My experience with the northern wolf 
is that this is just what he does not do. 

The first day of our travel along the new land I was walking 
across the foot of a bay, while the sledges several miles outside 
were following a course touching only the capes and points of the 



334 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

coast. I saw a wolf at about half a mile and he apparently saw 
me at the same distance, for I was black and moving against the 
hillside that was already speckled with the black patches of the 
spring thaw. After watching me a while he came towards me at 
a sedate lope until about three hundred yards away. Then he 
noted something peculiar in my actions, which of itself shows a 
high grade of intelligence, for it is fairly certain that the only 
dark animals he had ever seen were either ovibos or caribou. The 
former he regards with respect and never attempts to attack, but 
it cannot be supposed that he is afraid of them, for while they are 
powerful and have a good defense against wolves they are too 
clumsy to be dangerous on the offensive. Caribou, on the other 
hand, are his regular food, and in the northern islands at every 
season except summer must furnish more than 99 per cent, of it. 

When the wolf stopped I stopped also. After he had watched 
me for a minute he commenced to circle to get my wind. As soon 
as he was sufficiently to leeward he stopped to sniff what must have 
been to him a strange scent. Just as soon as he had his mind made 
up that it was strange he went off at a lope. And it seemed to me 
as I watched him that he was using a good deal of will power to 
keep himself at a fairly dignified gait. 

In places equally distant from human beings I have often since 
met wolves singly or in pairs and have found them equally cautious. 
Sometimes they are in bands of eight or ten, presumably the par- 
ents and the family of grown-up pups, and on such occasions they 
may come a little closer but seldom within 150 yards, if in the 
open. In the woods, as for instance near Bear Lake, they will 
approach closer, especially the family groups if the pups are well 
grown. 

At noon on June 20th we found ourselves on the west coast of 
what appeared to be a bay fifteen miles or more across and ob- 
viously a great deal deeper than that, for no land could be seen 
towards the bottom of it. The weather had cleared and visibility 
was excellent. We would have liked to continue traveling but the 
opportunity was too good to lose and we stopped to get a very good 
determination of latitude and longitude. 

From this observation camp I walked a short distance inland, 
both to get some idea of the elevation and to secure a view, especially 
for islands to the south. Measured by the aneroid, the land rose to 
75 feet a hundred yards from the beach and to 175 feet four hun- 
dred yards inland. A mile or two inland it was probably 500 to 
800 feet high, in places rolling grassy prairie, but in other places 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 335 

there was but little vegetation on a surface of limestone that had 
been split into fragments by the frosts of winter. 

From the 175-foot elevation I was able to see Prince Patrick 
Island plainly to the southwest, but there was fog hanging lower 
on the ice so that intervening islands could not be made out. To 
the south I could see two islands and made the correct judgment 
that one of them would be Fitzwilliam Owen Island of McClintock 
and that the other a little to the east was new, later named Eight 
Bears Island. Across an apparent bay in the coast we were fol- 
lowing I could see the land continue its trend to the southeast. 

The next day we crossed the "bay" (which later proved a strait) 
and found it to be about sixteen miles wide in a direct line SE from 
our camp of June 20th to the one of June 21st. On the way across 
I had an experience which illustrates how easily one may be de- 
ceived into misidentifying even things seen in fairly clear weather. 

Baron Nordenskiold tells of mistaking a walrus for an island 
and identifying the white tusks with two extensive glaciers coming 
down between mountain ranges to the coast. Hanbury tells of mis- 
taking a mouse for a polar ox, and Godfred Hansen describes how 
his dogs ran up to and killed a polar bear which turned out to be 
a fox. Similarly, I had myself on a previous expedition mistaken 
a marmot {citellus parryi) for a grizzly bear. 

From what I had already seen my mind was made up that this 
was an extensive land, and was thinking about how large it might 
be as I was walking across the bay, following a course somewhat 
more northerly than that of the sledges. I had almost reached the 
beach on the east side and was just rounding a point when I looked 
to the north and saw on the other side of the next low point the 
top of a pressure ridge of sea ice. Then the land was not so very 
large, or at any rate there was a deep fjord running into it from 
the opposite side, for here I was looking across a low neck of 
land at the sea ice on the other side. This was a discovery not 
very pleasing, for although the scientific attitude is to be satisfied 
with the truth whatever it is, still I knew very well the achieve- 
ment of finding the absence of land is not popularly valued as 
highly as demonstrating the presence of it, and the bigger the land 
the greater the fame attached to the discovery. I was a bit dis- 
consolate when I turned to the left, deciding that I would actually 
cross the neck of land and measure in paces the distance from sea 
ice to sea ice. 

But when I came to the top of the low ridge which had ap- 
peared to separate me from the pressure ice, I found a shallow 



336 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

depression beyond and then another ridge, with my ice still behind 
that one. So the width of the neck of land was not a few yards 
but perhaps half a mile or a mile. But when I came to the top 
of the second ridge the ice was behind a third one, and it was only 
when I got to the top of that and had walked a mile or two that I 
realized that what I was looking at was not pressure ice at all but 
the top of a mountain peak. It might be supposed that I who had 
seen thousands of pressure ridges under all sorts of conditions dur- 
ing many years would not be so deceived, especially against the 
trend of my desires. 

When I realized that here was a mountain peak I turned to 
climb the nearest high hill and from an elevation of three or four 
hundred feet made sure of all my surroundings. Seven or eight 
miles to the south the men were already pitching camp. It was a 
little after midnight. The sky was clear and visibility promised 
to be excellent. I made up my mind to go to the top of the moun- 
tain, seizing this rare opportunity to learn much about our sur- 
roundings in a little while. 

It was now the 21st of June, ''the longest day of the year" in 
places where nights are dark, and it promised to be the first really 
warm day of our experience. But as I proceeded overland I could 
see that there must have been several warm days here, for little 
lakes of water in the low places and some of the smaller creeks were 
beginning to run. The walking could scarcely have been worse. 
Where the ground was bare the sticky clay stuck to my feet till 
they weighed each ten or fifteen additional pounds. Where the 
snow remained it was so soft that at every step I sank deep and 
occasionally up to the hips. In a few places walking was actually 
dangerous, for where there is a deep snowbank running from a 
hill out into a lake it is possible to sink in ten or fifteen feet of 
slush as one might in quicksand. I was naturally on my guard, 
for the condition was not new to me, but in several cases I had to 
cross ravines on top of snow where a brook was running through 
a tunnel underneath. Every one of such crossings had a danger 
which I realized fully. 

When I recognized my pressure ridge for a mountain I had es- 
timated it to be six or eight miles away, but I walked six miles 
and another six and still the peak was far ahead. Eventually 
after twenty miles of walking I got to the top of it. But not quite 
soon enough. The wind was beginning to blow from the north- 
west and had already rolled a cloud of fog in from the sea that hid 
everything lying between the north and northwest. There was not 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 337 

much use looking to west or southwest, for that was the district 
from which we had come. To the south I had akeady had a good 
look from the observation spot, so that the new and fruitful fields 
lay to the northeast and east. In those directions I saw high hills 
or low mountains rising one behind the other until the farthest 
ones were blue in the distance. I estimated that these were at least 
fifty miles away from my mountain to which I gave the name of 
Leffingwell Crags after Ernest de Koven Leffingwell now of Pas- 
adena, California, one of the joint commanders of the first polar 
expedition of which I was a member — The Leffingwell-Mikkelsen 
Expedition of 1906-7. 

To the south I could see camp from the top of the crag although 
it was so far away that I could not have identified it apart from 
my knowledge of where it ought to be. The tent, sledges and every- 
thing together were visible through my powerful binoculars as a 
mere dark speck. I was able, however, to get an exact compass 
bearing so as to make a direct course. Towards morning it had 
frozen a little and I found the walking less bad, and the land was 
also more level. It was ten minutes before noon when I started 
for home and I arrived there after seven hours and thirty-five 
minutes more of steady walking. 

Within a mile of the camp I saw the men beginning to hitch up 
a dog team attached to a light sled. I knew this meant that they 
had been beginning to worry about me and had decided to go out 
for a search. They had first waited supper a long time, then they 
had gone to bed and slept ten hours, after which they had had 
breakfast and waited around an hour or two and finally made up 
their minds that something had to be done. 

One might think that my companions would have had enough 
experience by now not to worry over my absence for twenty hours 
in good weather. This was one bit of hunter's wisdom which 
they had so far refused to absorb, although all of them learned it 
later. During my second year with the Eskimos I had been with 
a deer-hunting group in northern Alaska who still kept the ancient 
custom of beginning the hunt without breakfast. It was etiquette 
there that the hunters would get up stealthily while everyone else 
in the house was asleep and start for the hunt without touching food. 
It was considered effeminate to do otherwise. On a theory which I 
have found to work invariably, I decided that if this custom was 
all right for them it would be all right for me, and I found that it 
took but a few days of practice until I could quite as easily as 
they make a ten or fifteen-hour hunt without breakfast and come 



338 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

home at the end with nothing more than a good appetite. It was 
part of the same etiquette to eat twice in the evening. The women 
were supposed to have a sort of intuition by which they knew how 
to have a meal ready when the hunters came home and nearly 
always we got our food within the first half hour. Three or four 
hours later we would have a second meal before going to bed. 
I do not know, or rather I do know, what the orthodox hygienists 
would say about such things, but I have found the practice to 
work well, and after all that is the test. 

In my diary I read as follows: "On arrival at camp I found 
the men had been about to start for a search expedition when they 
saw me coming. They had had supper and ten hours' sleep and 
breakfast. Apparently they think a man will collapse from hun- 
ger after he has been six hours without a snack. I can't get them 
out of the idea that a meal every five or six hours is necessary. I 
find twenty hours no hardship so long as my mind is on my job, 
although when in camp I feel like eating every three or four hours." 

WE START SOUTH 

The walk overland with sticky mud on my feet and a ripple of 
brooks in my ears had convinced me that we had better hurry 
south. The special point of danger was that if we were too late 
we might be unable to cross McClure Strait from Melville Island 
to Banks Island. It was also possible that whaling ships might 
come to Kellett in early August and we wanted to be at home to 
make certain purchases and possibly engage a few men to help 
us. We also expected Wilkins with the North Star in early Sep- 
tember and I wanted to be there to meet him so he would not be 
compelled to wait, for it was my intention to board the Star with 
two dog teams and three or four of the men best adapted to 
sledge travel and proceed as far north as possible. Accordingly, I 
asked Storkerson and Thomsen to take the sled which they had been 
hitching up to search for me and proceed with it eastward to spy 
out the land, having in mind that they had to be back in time for 
a short sleep before we started out in the evening for home. 

Storkerson returning reported that he had gone about fifteen 
miles east and that from the top of a hill two or three hundred 
feet high he had seen land twenty or thirty miles farther to the 
east. To the south he had seen islands which we had noted a 
day or two before and beyond them a more distant and larger land 
which was probably Emerald Isle. This latter he had seen in a 
sort of mirage. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 339 

I had a feeling that leaving a newly-discovered land of unknown 
extent so soon after finding it needed some justification, and I made 
the following lengthy and rather formal entry in my diary: 



"The season when survey work can best be done here is just begin- 
ning, there are plenty of caribou on land and seals on the sea ice, so 
food and fuel are assured, but I have nevertheless decided to turn with 
the sun on June 22nd and follow her south to Kellett. The reasons, in 
the order in which they most obtrude themselves on me now, are: 

"I. If we follow the coastline farther east we get Melville Island 
between us and home, and I have become convinced that crossing it 
would at this season be difficult. For the land is mapped rugged in 
many places and if it were to prove like the land near the Leffingwell 
Crags, even the ten miles — if correct — where the chart shows Melville 
Island narrowest would be nearly half a month's task to cross, judging 
from my previous experience with sleds in rugged, muddy and stony 
land in summer. We should therefore, if we went farther, have to 
double back on our trail when we finally turned home or else go east 
around Melville Island. 

"II. If we turn now we may hope to reach Kellett by ice all the 
way. Thus we could probably be home before July 15, and could on 
the way determine the NW coast of Banks Island instrumentally — it 
seems to be considerably out in longitude, and this it is as important 
to correct as to map new land. If we delay much beyond this date we 
can hope to have the ice take us no farther than say the Bay of Mercy, 
whence we should have to 'pack dogs' overland, at the rate of 8 miles 
per day or so. This would be an added delay of two weeks perhaps and 
we might miss early ships that come to Banks Island — if any do come. 

"III. It is necessary to start home soon to be at Kellett to meet the 
North Star if she finds an early season. It is even more necessary now 
than last year (if that were possible) to have a more northerly base, and 
for this the Star is our only present hope. 

"IV. Starting home now promises to land me at Kellett in time to 
make out my reports to the Government to send should a whaler touch 
at Kellett — an important matter, as the plan I had when I left Kellett 
last February was to go myself for the Star to Coronation Gulf and I 
left some of the financial part of my report to be completed then. On 
deciding to send Wilkins in my stead I had to leave these reports at 
loose ends. 

"Y. If we go home now the trip should not prove very difficult, and 
the men are getting to show the strain of the long trip. We are over 
four months out now. If I work them too hard now they may rebel at 
going next year, and the trip west from Land's End is still to make. 

"VI. The trip west from Land's End must be made next year, Sta/r 



340 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

or no Star. To be prepared for her not coming we must get home to 
dry meat for use as dog feed on the ice. In any case she will probably 
not bring us skins for clothing and we must secure and dress enough 
caribou and seals for winter clothing and spring water boots for next 
year. 

"VII. Bernard and Levi are alone at home and there is much work 
of many kinds to do, so we are all urgently needed there. 

"VIII. My own especial scientific interests are in the archaeology of 
these lands and I want a week or two to dig at Kellett in the old village. 
It is possible I may learn something there which, when co-ordinated with 
my own previous work on the mainland and that of Jenness in Victoria 
Island and on the mainland, may lead to enlightening results. 

"IX. The men are out of tobacco and Thomsen (who still has a 
little from Ole) seems to take this hard. Then all of them are 'home- 
sick' for the fleshpots of Kellett. Storkerson is the only one of the three 
who has imagination to see anything in exploration beyond hard and 
disagreeable work. 

^^It is to be noted that none of the men worry over the question of 
quantity of food, though Thomsen especially dreads a long siege of 
'meat straight.' It is therefore shown that I have at least three disciples 
who have faith to believe that the rifles will provide food for the 
morrow." 

The evening of June 22nd we started south. From now until we 
got half-way down the west coast of Melville Island we had condi- 
tions which McClintock describes very well in his entry for June 
25, 1853. He is speaking then of the vicinity of Emerald Isle 
and, as it happened, we were in that vicinity the same day of the 
month but with us, as doubtless with him, the description was ap- 
plicable to the condition in that general locality for a matter of two 
weeks. He says: 

"Snow fell throughout the day but the weather now is beautiful. 
Started across the strait at a quarter before seven for Emerald Isle; 
we have ten days' provisions to last us to Depot Island. . . . Soon found 
the floe to be exactly in the condition we expected, the snow upon it 
partially thawed about knee-deep and the lower six inches saturated with 
water; our progress therefore was extremely slow. The men worked un- 
commonly well so that by frequent 'standing pulls' and occasional 'dig- 
ging out' they got the sledge along about two thirds of a mile in an hour. 
A thick fcg came on shortly after starting and continued throughout 
the march." * 

Although this entry of McClintock's is typical as to weather and 

* "Further Papers Relative to the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search 
of Sir John Franklin," London, 1855, p. 574. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 341 

conditions of snow, we were in several respects more fortunately- 
situated. Our sledge was pulled by dogs while the men had to 
pull his. However, our sledge kept sinking in so deep that had it 
been of ordinary type it would have had to be pulled ahead right 
through the granular snow, somewhat in the manner of a snowplow. 
That was the way on the west coast of Banks Island when we 
were getting ashore in 1914, and so it evidently was with McClin- 
tock. But our sledges now had the special "toboggan bottom" 
so that when the runners had sunk about six inches the snow came 
in contact with it. They had the merit that they were as good 
as any ordinary sledge on glare ice or on hard snow, at the same 
time that they converted themselves into toboggans when they 
sank deep enough in soft snow. The snow was so soft now that 
our dogs had very poor footing and the smaller ones floundered 
about so that they, as well as the sledges, had to be dragged along 
by the bigger dogs. I have no doubt that but for the toboggan 
bottoms our progress would have been even slower than McClin- 
tock's. 

Another advantage of our equipment was in the snowshoes and 
skis. All of us were used to skis from childhood but we had long 
ago come to the conclusion that in the Arctic they are of little 
use, and although we had a pair with us we were carrying them 
mainly because we used them in constructing the frame of our 
sled boat for crossing open water. The snowshoes were for actual 
use. Now for the first time conditions appeared where skis were 
better. The snowshoes would sink into the slush and when you 
pulled them up you brought up with them a heavy load of it, so 
that in some places they were worse than useless. The man who 
had the skis was usually able to glide along on the surface without 
breaking through, partly because of their greater surface area 
but mostly because they slide smoothly, while snowshoes have to 
be lifted up and put down with a sort of stamping motion. 

On this journey as on most journeys we kept taking soundings. 
The depth between the new land and Eight Bears Island was a 
hundred fathoms. Soundings were taken through seal holes and 
occasionally we shot the seals for food. We found it an even 
greater advantage now not to be compelled to haul food with us, 
and we traveled with the sledges so light that there was seldom 
more than two or three days' provisions ahead. 

On the evening of June 22nd, just before we landed on Eight 
Bears Island, came perhaps the heaviest fall of snow that I have 
ever seen and in weather well above freezing, so that in a few 



342 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

minutes we became as soaking wet as if it it had been a tropical 
shower. When we got to the land we found it clayey and at first 
everything seemed mud, but one grassy patch made a tolerably 
comfortable camp spot. When you keep your sleeping gear dry 
you can always get comfortable by taking off your clothes and 
going to bed. Winter travel is much more comfortable than sum- 
mer, but it is rarely indeed that we are uncomfortable even in 
summer, or if we are it is only a temporary matter, mitigated by 
the knowledge that we shall presently be comfortable again. It 
is not much worse than being hungry when you know that a square 
meal is only a little way off. 

"Wednesday, June 23rd," says the diary, ''was a day of snow 
and fog on which we camped early in the morning and slept all day. 
This makes a bad beginning for a diary volume, but Ole says a 
bad beginning makes a good ending." This is the first entry of the 
book that runs from June 23rd to December 6th, 1915. It proved 
one more old saying to be v/rong by ending worse than it began, 
but it is too early to tell about that now. 

June 24th when the weather cleared we could still see the Lef- 
fingwell Crags forty or fifty miles to the north. They are the 
most peculiar and most conspicuous landmark we found on any of 
the lands we discovered. 

Eight Bears Island tiu-ned out to be some five or six miles east 
of McClintock's Fitzwilliam Owen Island. The two are similar 
though Owen Island is perhaps a little larger. Each is rolling land 
with grass and moss. Eight Bears Island is less than four miles in 
its greatest diameter and about two miles wide. Here appeared 
the first ptarmigan of the year and Thomsen shot one so that we 
might make sure which kind it was — a rock ptarmigan. We saw 
also a few dozen Hutchins geese. A dozen seals could be seen 
from camp and of these Storkerson killed one and Ole another. 
We did not need two and Ole killed his "for practice." This was 
the last of the practice hunting. 

It was on Eight Bears Island that we found the ancient and 
far-decayed skull of a female ovibos. I have often wondered how 
it got there, for this is our only evidence that these animals may 
migrate from island to island. In our experience they avoid sea ice 
scrupulously, never going much more than a hundred yards from 
land. But this cow apparently had come across from some other 
island, unless she was a survivor from the times when the various 
islands were a connected land. That is by no means impossible, 
for although the skull was not petrified, it might have been pre- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 343 

served since half a million years ago, provided that most of that 
time it had remained embedded in frozen earth to be exposed. and 
thawed out only recently. 

Without landing on Fitzwilliam Owen Island we struck SW by 
W from Eight Bears Island for the NW corner of Emerald Isle, 
which could not be seen from sea level but was plain when viewed 
from the top of the island. The next day the sledges traveled along 
the west coast of Emerald Isle about half a mile from shore while 
I walked overland. We would have liked to stop and complete 
the survey begun by McClintock but the late season forbade. The 
island was well supplied with grass and moss but not as exception- 
ally as McClintock seems to have wanted to imply by calling it 
Emerald Isle. It is easy to see from his record that up to this 
period of his career as an explorer he had seen little if any low or 
rolling land in summer but had been confined in his summer experi- 
ence to such rocky lands as Melville Island. Most of the explorers 
who have been in Melville Island comment on the richness of vege- 
tation there. This is in contrast with our account, for we find it 
more rocky and with less vegetation to the square mile than almost 
any other land known to us. This merely means that most other 
explorers had seen no other arctic land in summer and assumed it 
to be exceptionally rich in vegetation merely because it contained 
any at all. 

Mecham may have thought that he had found a great exception 
to ordinary arctic conditions when he wrote for Melville Island, 
''Sent the sledge across the bay and walked around myself upon a 
perfect field of grass and moss much resembling a rich meadow. 
Several musk oxen and reindeer grazing. A large flock of snowy 
geese flew over." * 

This was indeed a great exception to arctic lands as they are 
supposed to be, but not an exception to arctic lands as they are. 
But naturally men brought up in such lands as England were in- 
capable of imagining when they were traveling over the snows of 
winter that under them were grass and moss. They noted these 
only in summer. Had they done much winter overland traveling 
they would have seen the grass even at that season, but practically 
all the exploring which put on the map the islands north of Canada 
was done by sledges following the coast, touching the land chiefly 
at the promontories and with only rare excursions upon it. To 
this Melville Island has been the chief exception, for from Parry 

* "Further Papers Relative to the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search 
of Sir John Franklin," London, 1855, p. 533. 



344 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

(1819) onward it has been frequently crossed in summer and hunted 
over by the crews of ships wintering there. 

As we proceeded south along the west coast of Melville Island 
we found it beautiful in a way quite different from most of the 
other northern lands. Banks Island, for instance, has some pic- 
turesque cliffs near its south end and also towards the north, but 
in the main the beauty of Banks Island is that of the rolling 
prairie, a landscape not commonly appreciated by others than those 
who happen to have been brought up on prairie land. It is the 
beauty of openness, fertility and utility. Melville Island, while 
scarcely alpine in character, has deep gorges, sheer precipices and 
bold headlands. This leaves no room for extensive grass lands, 
and the great number of ovibos in the island as compared with 
most other northern lands is due not to its fertility but to . the 
fact that it has not in recent times been overrun by Eskimos. 

But Eskimos have been on Melville Island. We and others 
before us found traces of them on Liddon Gulf. Similar traces 
have been found on Byam Martin Island by others and by us on 
the south coast of Melville Island east of Bridport Inlet. But it 
is clear that the country was not long inhabited. The reason seems 
plain. 

There are certain groups of Eskimos that live on fish. Probably 
Melville Island is not well supplied with fish although of that we 
know little. But most Eskimos live by limiting walrus, seals, 
caribou, cattle and polar bears. Of these walrus are absent and, 
so far as my experience goes, Melville Island is the poorest locality 
in the north for seals with the exception of the north end of 
Byam Martin Channel. There is some sealing both in Liddon 
Gulf and in Hecla Bay in spring and rare seals are found elsewhere. 
Polar bears are not nearly so numerous as in most other arctic 
localities. Caribou have not been found there in large numbers 
by us nor are they reported in large numbers by others. Indeed 
they could not be numerous, since the land is exceptionally in- 
fertile. 

There remain the polar cattle. Undoubtedly Melville Island at 
present would be a paradise for a small band of Eskimos but it 
would remain a paradise only a few years, when all the cattle 
would be killed off. It is clear that Eskimos in the days antedating 
the fur industry and the support of traders would not by choice 
have remained in Melville Island long. Coming perhaps from 
Victoria Island to the south, possibly from the east, they discovered 
Melville Island (to judge by the ruins) two or three hundred years 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 345 

ago. At first it must have been a desirable land to them but the 
desirability consisted entirely in the cattle. In a few years these 
were killed off, whereupon the colonists either died of starvation 
during an unlucky winter or returned to the more favorable islands 
from which they had come. It is of course possible that after a 
few decades had elapsed and the ovibos had had a chance to be- 
come more numerous, a second migration might have come in to 
remain for a few years. 

We know that Melville Island has been seen by the Victoria 
Island Eskimos when they hunt on the north coast. No tradition 
survives there to tell of their ever having crossed over to Melville 
Island, but with its cliffs in plain sight there is no reason why a 
few adventurous families might not do so any time. They may 
easily do so in the near future, for in the course of our expedition 
one Victoria Island Eskimo accompanied us there and discovered 
for himself the abundance of the highly-valued polar cattle. 

On June 29th we came upon the only caribou seen on this trip 
along the Melville Island coast. It was a yearling and therefore 
thin, so we made no serious attempt to get it. That day also we 
saw the first owl since the precedmg 20th of February when we 
noticed one just north of Cape Kellett. We had noted in the fall 
of 1914 that the owls which were very numerous in the summer 
became gradually fewer towards Christmas and seeing one in Feb- 
ruary really surprised us. So far as we know, their main food is 
the lemming and these must be hard to get in wmter time. Still, 
we occasionally see lemming tracks in any month of winter and 
it is doubtless these stragglers the owls live on. 

Watching the owls in their lemmmg hunts I have marveled at 
their intelligence but equally at their stupidity. An instance is a 
short autumn day when I sat for several hours on a hill in south- 
west Banks Island and studied through my field glasses the white 
foxes and owls all about. Within a circle of a few miles were sev- 
eral foxes, now hidden by hills or in ravines, now visible in the 
open, hunting lemmmgs. On knolls here and there sat owls watch- 
ing the foxes. 

There had been a four or six-inch fall of snow which lay as yet 
untouched by wind, level and fluffy. Under this snow, tunneling 
it and fondly believing themselves unobserved, the lemmings were 
everywhere. The foxes moved about at a leisurely, elastic 
trot. Every lew minutes I could see one of them stop, cock his 
head on one side, and listen. Possibly the senses of sight and smell 
were also active, but certainly they gave primarily the impression 



346 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

of listening. After a moment or two of alert attention the fox 
gave a high leap in the air like a diver from a springboard and 
came down in the snow with nose and forepaws together. In half 
the cases the lemming was caught at that instant, in half the 
remainder he was caught a moment later, but in a few instances he 
escaped — probably into a hole in the frozen ground. If left un- 
disturbed, the fox would kill the lemming with a sharp nip or 
two, drop it on the snow, look at it contemplatively for a moment, 
pick it up again and bury it in the soft snow to trot off and — I 
have no doubt — forget all about it. For days and days the lem- 
ming catch would be far in excess of appetite, and before the fox 
became hungry a hundred miles might intervene. If these buried 
lemmings are ever found and eaten it is probably by a wolf or some 
other fox. 

But the fox rarely buried the lemming undisturbed. From a 
nearby knoll an owl was watching with eyes and interest as keen 
as mine. When the fox paused, alert for a sound beneath the snow, 
an owl on a nearby hill half-turned and part-crouched for flight; 
while yet the fox was on its springboard leap and dive through the 
air the owl's broad wings were spreading; and before the fox had 
buried its kill the owl was upon him. This must have been the 
thousand and first experience of the sort for the fox but it acted as 
if completely surprised. No doubt its attention had been so fo- 
cussed on the business of securing the lemming that owls were tempo- 
rarily forgotten. At the wing swish and approaching shadow the 
fox cringed as if in abject fear, but nevertheless evidently half 
realized that the object of the owl was robbery rather than mur- 
der, for with the very cringing and slinking motion of fear and 
flight the fox picked up the lemming (if it had been dropped). 
Then came a dash away, fast for a fox but slow as compared with 
the easy glide of the owl, at the end of a short second of which the 
owl was directly over the fox, reaching for it with its talons but 
never touching, for evidently discretion was part of its campaign. 
After two or three sharp doublings and vain attempts to get away 
from the owl the fox would turn on his pursuer and make a great 
leap in the air towards her. Apparently the owl's object was to 
make the fox snap at her, thus in excitement dropping the lemming 
from its mouth. In this I never saw the owl successful, for in 
every case watched by me the owl gave up worrying the fox after • 
half an hour or so, but I was told by Eskimos that they had seen 
foxes drop their lemmings in snapping at the owls, whereupon 
the owl snatched the lemming from the snow and was up and 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 347 

away. Such outcomes now and then must account for the cheer- 
ful optimism with which the owls keep up their watching and 
worrying of the foxes. 

But this ingenuity of the owl is more than matched by her stu- 
pidity. Why doesn't she wait till the fox buries the lemming 
under four or five inches of fluffy snow and trots off? With a 
scratch or two of her claws in the snow the owl could now have the 
lemming. Just that much increase of intelligence would certainly 
make the owPs struggle for existence during the northern winter 
far simpler. As it is, it must be a severe struggle, which accounts 
for most of them going south during midwinter, if not before. It is 
only rare owls, like rare ravens, that spend the whole winter far 
north of the treeline. 

At the end of June on the middle of the west coast we found 
the season a great deal more backward than it had been in Banks 
Island just after our landing the year before. When we had 
landed at Norway Island on June 25th most of the land was free 
of snow with here and there a drift persisting in the lee of some hill. 
Now in Melville Island at the same season the spots of bare 
ground were scarcely bigger than the spots of snow on Banks 
Island. Still, the weather was so warm the last week of June that 
it was unpleasant for walking or any exercise, although we felt it 
about right for sitting around in idleness at camp time. It is prob- 
able that a week after, we left Melville Island most of the snow was 
gone. 

On my second expedition I spent the year 1910-1911 northeast 
of Bear Lake where cattle were still not extinct. At that time 
we always knew in what direction to go to get them but we had 
not the sportsman's desire for a trophy and they were not of any 
great scientific interest, for their pelts are more numerous in mu- 
seum collections than those of many northern animals. I had also 
a sentimental disinclination against being a party to the killing of 
the last survivors in our district. Accordingly, while I saw the 
traces of cattle and knew Indians who killed them that winter, and 
while a week's journey would easily have brought us into a country 
where we could have killed dozens if not hundreds, I had not up to 
the present killed polar cattle or even looked for them. 

We saw the first of them June 30th although their traces had 
been evident since we came near the coast. Their footprints were 
in the mud and great withes of their brown wool lying here and 
there on the snow or in the grass. I quote my diary : 



348 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

*'June 30, Wednesday: Started (to hunt ahead) 10:30 P. M. 
and the sleds followed about 11 P. M. (June 29th). Camped about 
6 A. M. (June 30th) on the north shore of Marie Bay. Distance 
traveled about six miles. At about 1:30 A. M. I went to the 
top of a 400-foot hill half a mile inland to have a look at the bay, 
as the going was execrable — slush two to four inches above the bot- 
toms of the sled basket in many places. Saw from this hill two 
polar cattle. I have never wanted to lend a hand in the extermina- 
tion of these patriarchal remnants of a race, but we had only one 
meal of seal meat for the dogs, two meals for ourselves . . . besides 
blubber and other fat. I therefore had to shoot these poor fel- 
lows. They proved old bulls. We camped on the shore of the bay 
abreast of the hill and fetched the meat in two loads, sledding 
over bare ground half the way. Seals are difficult to get now, as 
one does not like to crawl snake-fashion through eight or ten inches 
of ice water." 

In a way it was lucky that these were very old bulls for other- 
wise I might have disbelieved entirely the story that they have 
an odor or a taste reminding one of the perfume of musk. I re- 
member quite well my mother's silver box of musk she inherited 
from her grandmother, with the odor still there after more than 
threescore years. This archaic perfume was therefore known to 
me, but I did not notice any musk odor about the animals when 
skinning them. Ole had shed most of his civilized tastes so far as 
meat was concerned, but he still retained a fondness for kidneys 
that Thomsen shared. These two saved the kidneys which we 
might otherwise have fed to the dogs, and boiled them with our 
first potful of meat. In the cooking we noticed an odor resembling 
musk, enough to be identified when coming from an animal named 
"musk-ox." The meat itself had a slight pungent flavor, although 
we agreed it was not a disagreeable flavor. But Thomsen and Ole 
reported that the kidneys were remarkably strong; I think they 
threw pieces of them away. I did not realize it at the time but 
later from repeated cookings of their beef where kidneys were never 
put in the pot, I feel certain that the odor and taste in this one 
instance must have come from the kidneys. 

In later years when we had to eat a good deal of ovibos beef, 
some Eskimo women in our parties claimed to be able to smell a 
peculiar odor about it but it was usually not noticeable to the • 
Eskimo men nor, so far as I know, to any of the whites. 

From this time on as we proceeded south along the coast we 
saw between twenty and thirty cattle, although we never took 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 349 

pains to look for them. On one occasion we took several photo- 
graphs of two young bulls and a cow. They were about half a mile 
from camp and Thomsen and Ole went up within fifty yards of 
them to have a good look. The animals stopped feeding and kept 
their eyes continually on the two men as long as they were near 
but resumed their feeding when they left. Upon the report of the 
tameness of these three, Storkerson took a camera, went within 
about fifty yards and took about three pictures, later spoilt by water 
getting into the camera. Storkerson had used a 'Vest pocket" 
camera, and on his report of how near he had been I took a larger 
camera to try to get some better pictures. But our attentions 
were beginning to seem suspicious, for when I got within three 
hundred yards the animals became restless and when I was more 
than two hundred yards away they ran off. They ran for about a 
quarter of a mile and stopped on top of a knoll, and when I con- 
tinued to follow they ran a second time, and the third time they 
kept running till they were out of sight. 

Thus we got an initial lesson in the psychology of ovibos. Their 
minds seem to work remarkably slowly and it takes a long time 
to make them run. They make a defensive formation when any 
startling object appears to them. Farther their thinking does not 
seem to go until after five or ten minutes. Anybody who goes 
under cover to within two hundred yards and then runs up at top 
speed can get within any distance of a herd unless that particular 
herd is nervous from having been previously followed around and 
frightened. But if after running up you remain near them for five 
or ten minutes, there is about an even chance of one of two things 
happening: either they will scatter and begin to feed or they will 
stampede. At this time the ovibos were shedding their wool so 
profusely that upon side view their legs could not easily be seen 
and in some cases could not be seen at all for the wool that hung 
down to the ground and dragged along. 

Marie Bay, which the chart shows as less than five miles deep, 
appeared in the crossing to be fifteen or twenty miles deep. It 
seemed to have a fjord-like character and for five or six miles in- 
land a uniform width of three or four miles, and beyond that to 
continue for at least another ten miles. This discrepancy seemed 
curious to us at the time but it is not remarkable when we compare 
• it with McClintock's record of his survey of this coast. Both his 
diary and his route show that he traveled about tangent to 
Cape De Bray and Sandy Point, a course that took him far out- 
side the mouth of the fjord which itself extends out from a shallow 



350 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

bay. This shows how Melville Island could be profitably resur- 
veyed, although it is better mapped than any other of the northern 
islands with which we had experience. The fact that it is com- 
paratively well surveyed and that we have always been in a great 
hurry when passing it has prevented us from any serious attempt 
to modify its coastline. 

In comparing the recent Admiralty charts with McClintock's 
original survey as published in the Admiralty Blue Books I have 
noted several differences, and in practically every case I have found 
that McClintock's original work corresponded with our observa- 
tions better than the alterations as published by the Admiralty. 
For instance, McClintock shows the trend of the coast from Cape 
De Bray towards Sandy Point to be more easterly than indicated 
on the Admiralty chart. Our observation is that it is even more 
easterly than shown by McClintock. In most cases of difference 
between McClintock's original maps of Melville Island and the 
more recent ones it is strange that any change has been made, for 
most of that coast has been untraversed by any one since his time. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

MELVILLE ISLAND AND McCLURE STRAIT 

TOWARDS the end of June we began to be annoyed and de- 
layed by the rotting of our dog harness. I suppose there must 
be some rot-proof material or rot-resisting enough to last 
through a season, but we had none of it on the expedition. The best 
thing we ever tried is ordinary commercial horse harness leather. We 
never had much of this and relied on two things : first, the moosehide 
harness made by the North American Indians, practically inde- 
structible when kept dry. Through experience I know that a set 
of this will last for years under ordinary winter conditions. But 
these were no winter conditions, for our progress was much of the 
time something between wading and navigation. It was not pos- 
sible to travel over the land for, although there was snow in many 
places, there were little rivers coming down to the coast too deep 
and turbulent to be forded. It was not possible to leave the coast 
on approach to these rivers so as to make a detour around the 
mouth, because their warm water had made its way between 
the ice and the land to a considerable distance each way from it, 
forming an impassable moat that prevented us from getting out 
on the ice. In fact, it was only at points half-way between these 
rivers that it was possible to get from sea ice to shore, and we had 
to travel along a mile or two from land. The ice in Fitzwilliam 
Strait and later on in Kellett Strait was mostly of the type known 
as "paleocrystic"; that is, it was old ice where the rains and thaws 
of one or more summers had rounded the pressure ridges into oval 
hummocks. There was a little this-year's ice here and there, 
showing that the straits had been open or at least that the pack had 
been in motion the previous season. 

On the old ice there were left over from last year water courses 
which had deepened into channels, in some cases four or five feet 
deep. Where they were that deep we did not venture into them 
but the best we could usually do was to cross where they widened 
out into little lakes, the depth of water then being from a few 
inches to three feet. In the deeper places the dogs had to swim 

351 



352 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and the men had to keep their hands on the sledges to keep them 
from upsetting as they floated along behind the teams, buoyed up 
by empty tin cans kept near the bottoms of the loads for the 
purpose. 

But the worst thing was the effect upon harness that had now 
been wet for weeks. We always made an attempt to dry them but 
our stops were never long enough to provide a fair chance except 
when we were delayed by rain or snow, and then there was no 
question of drying. The harness, whether made of cotton webbing 
or of Indian smoke-tanned moosehide, would stand about two or 
three weeks of this, after which they became so rotten that they 
broke whenever the dogs made a particularly heavy pull. That 
meant that they broke at the most critical times. 

By the 3rd or 4th of July the harness had become so bad as to 
be almost unusable and we had to devote a day to making new 
harness out of the raw hides of recently killed seals. These would 
soon rot under the same conditions and they were exposed to the 
further danger of being eaten by the dogs, for there are few things 
more appetizing to a dog than fresh sealskin. In this we prac- 
tically agree, for if you have time to scald the hair off seals, as is 
done in butchering pigs, the skin becomes an excellent dish resem- 
bling pigs' feet. 

Another trouble was that the thaw had now been in progress 
long enough to convert most of the ice into what is known as 
"needle ice." Salt water ice so long as it remains salt does not 
divide into crystals on thawing, but fresh water ice or sea ice that 
has become fresh settles into crystals resembling hexagon or octagon 
lead pencils on end and with upward pointed tips sharper than the 
sharpest leads. Over these men and dogs alike have to walk, but we 
have the advantage of our feet being protected by boots soled with 
the hide of the bearded seal, so that one pair of boot soles will stand 
perhaps a hundred miles of walking over even this sort of ice, 
although boots shod with the skin of the common seal would not 
last more than one-fifth that distance. We protect the soles by 
using patches under the heel and the ball, expecting each patch to 
last a day or two. In this way we can make two or three pairs of 
boots do us a season. 

But the poor dogs have none but the natural protection of 
their feet at first. Four or five days of travel over needle ice will 
make the soles of their feet raw, and the time would soon come 
when they could not travel at all if we did not make boots for them. 




Lead Running Away from Land Showing Loose Ice Cake that Would 
Serve as Bridge or Ferry. 




Rocky Polar Coast — Sum mi 




Sandy Polar Coast — Summer. 




Sandy Polar Coast— Spring— Showing Earth Heaped Up by Ice Pressure. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 353 

It had been my intention at the beginning of this trip to bring 
along four or five hundred boots but some one had blundered and 
when we made a search of our loads we found less than two hun- 
dred. These were made of canvas and each would be good for one 
day. The boot is made without much shape to it, something like 
a mitten without a thumb. When a hole has been worn on one 
side we turn it around so that the dog walks on one side of the boot 
in the forenoon and on the other in the afternoon. It is a well 
known fact that thirteen dogs have fifty-two feet, but I don't think 
any one realizes it fully who has not had the task of making boots 
for dogs day after day. It took only four days to wear out the 
ones we had with us. We were in a great hurry to get to Banks 
Island, so at first we used to sit up evenings to mend these boots, 
making a few additional new ones. But it soon became apparent 
that this was not practicable and for the last week or ten days 
we used to travel two days and then stop one day for making 
boots. It helped a little to make some of these of sealskin or of 
caribou skin so that they lasted a little longer, but here again there 
was the disadvantage that we had to watch the dogs to see that 
none of them ate their boots when we stopped. This was not 
because they were hungry but merely because their appetites were 
normal. 

When we got towards the southwest corner of Melville Island 
our fat for food and fuel had run out, for the two old bulls were 
extremely lean. At this season it is not possible to get at a seal 
without crawling snake-fashion through much ice water. The dis- 
comfort is not the worst feature, for it is almost impossible to keep 
from making a splash now and then, and a splash will always put 
a seal on his guard. Some of the ice we have to crawl over has been 
undermined by little rivulets of water and even with the best of care 
we break through. I therefore had to try several seals before get- 
ting one. The sharp needle ice that I have described as so hard on 
the feet of the dogs was no less hard on my old clothes as I dragged 
myself forward, and they were almost as nearly worn out as I was 
chilled numb when finally I got within about 150 yards of the seal. 
I had been trying so long and the glare of the sun was so bright 
that I knew shooting for the head was hopeless and I tried a body 
shot. Luckily it not only went through near the heart but also broke 
the spine. However, I got the seal by the barest margin for after 
running as hard as I could he was just sliding into his hole when I 
got there. That is the trouble with a body shot — the seal is lying 



354 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

on an incline, and the blood from the wound gets under him (as 
previously explained) and acts like a lubricant, tending to make him 
slide forward into the water. 

On July 3rd we saw a thing unique in the experience of all of us 
— a seal that had been killed by a wolf. We saw the wolf eating 
something on the ice about half a mile from our course and I went 
over to see what it was. With usual intelligence, this wolf made 
off while I was more than a quarter of a mile away. From the po- 
sition of the seal's body and from the marks on the ice the wolf 
had caught him sleeping near his hole and had dragged him about 
fifteen yards. He had then killed him by biting him repeatedly in 
the throat, whereupon he had commenced eating. I have heard 
trappers on the mainland say that seal's blubber is poor bait for 
wolves and that they will not eat it. Possibly this is another of the 
common superstitions, for all this wolf had eaten was blubber. He 
had commenced on the back of the seal a little forward from the tail 
and had eaten about a square foot, perhaps six or eight pounds, of 
the fat but none of the lean except for the skin that was attached 
to the blubber. 

This recalls the food habits of the polar bears. Apparently they 
do not keep in close touch with the trend of modern dietetics, for 
they do not seem aware of the necessity for variety in their food. 
Or it is possible that they are overimpressed with the views of cer- 
tain dietitians and are afraid of an excess of protein. However that 
may be, they seem to confine themselves to fat when they can. I 
have seen the evidence of a polar bear eating nearly a whole seal — 
meat, bones, blubber and all — but these have been small seals and 
the bear must have been hungry. The ordinary thing, so far as my 
experience goes, is that if a bear kills a good-sized seal he goes about 
it just like our wolf, only a good deal more rapidly, and he strips 
the entire carcass, or nearly the whole of it, of fat and then goes off, 
leaving the meat and blood for the foxes. 

This practice of bears has led to the belief among Eskimos that 
a bear has the ability to strip the blubber off a seal along with the 
skin in the manner in which an Eskimo skins a fox. It is an opera- 
tion for which English has no good descriptive term unless we bor- 
row it from the furriers, who call it *'to case" a skin. It is as if you 
were to remove a stocking by turning the upper part back on itself 
without first pushing it down towards the ankle, and then pulling it 
off in such a way that the stocking is turned entirely inside out. 

Those who are familiar with the well known ''fact" (and who of 
us is not?) that more fat is needed in the diet where the weather is 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 355 

cold, will doubtless explain in that way this peculiar food habit 
of the polar bear. Here naturally arises a subject on which I want 
to have my say — the great need for fat in an arctic diet. 

I am not sure whether I learned this from my parents or from the 
school geographies. At any rate, I knew it up to the time I was 
twenty-seven when I first went north to the Eskimos. I had read 
much about their fondness for blubber and I expected to marvel at 
seeing them eating with a spoon some palatable food such as butter, 
or to be horrified at seeing them drinking train oil. I did see them 
eat butter with a spoon. They seemed to look upon a piece of 
it as a sort of dessert as we do upon suet pudding. We never eat 
butter with a spoon unless after mixing it with sugar and changing 
the name into ''hard sauce." But in my whole polar experience I 
have only on two occasions seen an Eskimo drink seal oil. One was 
the time we were starving on Horton River in 1909 and had nothing 
but seal oil for food. There were seven or eight of us and the rest 
used to soak the oil up in something to make a kind of salad, but 
one old man used to take his oil "straight." He used to drink half 
a teacupful in the morning and half a teacupful at night, and the 
rest of the Eskimos marveled how he could do it. 

The only other place known to me where seal oil is drunk is on 
the "Sandspit" at Nome, Alaska, when the tourists come to town. 
It is an ordinary tourist stunt to walk out to the Sandspit and say 
to the first Eskimo, ''Here, Johnny, I'll give you a dollar if you'll 
let me see you drink some oil." The victim I saw took a small 
sip and tried hard not to make a face and my tourist friends thought 
they had seen one of the wonders of the North. 

My experience with diet in the North is that you get hungry 
sooner if you are cold but it makes little difference just what food 
you eat to satisfy the hunger. On ships and at whaling stations 
or at the barracks of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police at 
Herschel Island there is no greater percentage of fat in the diet than 
where similar groups are gathered in another climate. If men are 
badly dressed or if their houses are cold they may eat with rather 
better appetites than would be the case farther south, but what they 
eat is a matter of choice or individual preference. The Police eat a 
great deal of bacon and so do the Hudson's Bay men, but that is 
largely because it is considered a standard ration and is regularly 
furnished from outside. 

There was a time when fat was a much more important element 
than it is now in the diet of Europeans. This was before the time 
of sugar. Four hundred years ago ordinary sugar was unknown in 



356 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Europe and the amount eaten in the form of honey or sweet fruits 
was negligible when compared with the present-day huge consump- 
tion. Three hundred years ago sugar was the luxury of kings and 
two hundred years ago it was a rarity in the diet of the ordinary 
man. Even within our own time the per capita consumption of 
sugar has increased enormously. And this article of food which 
some people imagine to be a prime necessity and which others even 
think to be essential to health, is really a newcomer in the diet even 
with us. But as sugar has increased in favor, fat has lost caste. 
The relation between the two has always been reciprocal — the more 
sugar the less fat. 

If it were true that there is special need for fat in the diet of 
the northern people it ought to follow that there is less need for it in 
the tropics, and this is the common view. But it is well known in 
Australia that in the early days before commerce attained great 
proportions and before sugar and jams and the like became an im- 
portant item in the diet, the "boundary riders" or sheep herders in 
sub-tropical Australia used to select for killing the fattest sheep. 
They would eat the fattest meat and if too much fat tried out they 
would eat the melted grease or the tallow. But as commerce in- 
creased and sugar began to come in they ate less and less of the fat 
mutton until now you will see a sheep herder in the same climate 
trim off the fat from his meat and leave it on the plate. 

My friend Carl Akeley hunts in tropical Africa. There is very 
little sugar in the regular diet of the negroes he employs as carriers 
and attendants. He has seen at the killing of a hippopotamus (al- 
though I have never seen it at the killing of a seal or a whale) 
the whole assembled crowd of natives go wild with joy in an orgy 
of fat-eating. When the hippopotamus is killed they cut off the fat 
in quivering strips and eat it until they are ill. So it may be nec- 
essary to seek another explanation than the standard one of the 
need for fat in cold climates to explain the polar bear's peculiar 
habit of stripping the fat off a seal, somewhat as a small boy licks 
the jam and butter off a slice of bread. 



At the southwest corner of Melville Island we saw the first polar 
bear track since our landing at the southwest corner of Prince Pat- 
rick Island. As I have remarked elsewhere, polar bears are very 
rare animals north of 75° N. latitude in the western part of the 
Canadian arctic, although they seem to be numerous enough in sim- 
ilar latitudes farther east. Just before seeing the bear tracks we 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 357 

had found a rookery of some large gulls, probably Barrow gulls, and 
I tried to get some eggs, but they were too high up in a cliff. 

We were struggling steadily southward and I began to fear that 
we would not get to Cape Kellett much ahead of the whaling ships, 
if any were to come this season. By something like an inspiration 
I made the guess in my diary that the first whaler would probably 
arrive on the 10th of August. To make ready for this possibility I 
began writing letters on the back pages of the diary, for I did not 
see how we could possibly get to Kellett much before the 10th of 
August and I wanted to have some mail ready. I also began my re- 
port to the Government, writing in the evenings while the men were 
cooking and sometimes when they were making dog boots. 

We expected to make a crossing to the west side of Mercy Bay, 
Banks Island, from Cape Russell, but the cliffs are precipitous at 
this point and there is deep water inshore, so that a shore lead pre- 
vented a landing until we had gone five miles east beyond the Cape. 
Here we stopped for a day to repair harness, make dog boots and 
prepare for the crossing, and incidentally we clambered about the 
cliffs and found different layers of fossiliferous rock, useful in arriv- 
ing at the geologic age of the strata in the vicinity. 

Food animals might well be scarce on the way across Melville 
Strait. But the ice was sure to be rough, and for the safety of our 
sleds and to prevent the harness from breaking too often we wanted 
to be as light as possible. Accordingly we started on July 8th, 
for what we expected would be a four days' crossing, with food 
not quite enough for the fcfur days. 

That day and the next we saw neither seals nor bears. The ice 
was very badly cut up and sometimes the dogs had to swim. I 
quote two diary entries: '^Sunday, July 11th: 

''Started 7:50 A. M., camped on account of heavy rain at 2:15 
P. M. Distance 12 miles. 

" 'It never rains but it pours' is true in more senses than one 
of our situation this evening — short rations and heavy rain on an 
ice field are a disagreeable combination. 

"Saw a bear track — fresh. 

'^Monday, July 12th — A thick fog with variable light airs made 
travel impossible until the afternoon. We were ready to start be- 
fore six in the morning but were delayed by the fog till 2:30 P. M. 
Camped about 12:15 A. M. July 13th, distance 14 miles. 

"We saw a seal at 6:30 and I shot him stone dead at about 100 
yards. I foolishly delayed to shoot a second time 'to make sure 
of him.' I then ran as fast as I could but the blood from the wound 



358 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

thawed the ice too fast and he slid in when I was ten yards off. 
Camped on seeing two more seals but before I got near them the 
dogs started barking at something, which scared them and they dis- 
appeared." 

July 13th we were still six or eight miles from land when we 
stopped to eat the last of our food. It is a bit exaggerated to say, 
as the diary did above, that we were on short rations. Rather we 
were eating things that were not particularly agreeable. Our last 
lunch was a piece of sealskin with a little blubber attached. We 
enjoyed it, although we could think of things we might have pre- 
ferred. 

After about eight hours of wading through water and scrambling 
across wet ice hummocks we finally camped within two hundred 
yards of the shore, separated from the land by a shore lead of that 
width. This lead was full of seals. We expected them to sink, for 
the water was so fresh that you could almost drink it because of 
the river water that was coming off the land. But we were hungry 
and, after all, the laws of nature might not work, so I shot about 
a dozen seals before I made up my mind that the laws really were 
working. By that time the men had converted the sledge into a 
boat and Thomsen and I paddled ashore while Storkerson went in 
pursuit of other seals basking on the ice to the west. 

Thomsen and I went in different directions, and shortly after 
landing he killed a hare. He saw then two caribou, whereupon he 
set off iri pursuit of me and at his signs I turned back, although I 
had myself seen three old bulls in a different direction. Thomsen's 
caribou were young and lean but the lunch of sealskin made me 
incline to the view that a bird in the hand was worth two in the 
bush, so I went after and shot them. While Thomsen was doing 
the skinning I went in search of the bulls but they were not seen 
again. When we returned to the coast laden with caribou meat 
we found that "It never rains but it pours" was as much in order 
as it had been two days earlier although in a different sense, for 
Storkerson had killed a big seal. 

It speaks well for the arctic lands that our landing this year 
should have been as propitious as last. In 1914 we had landed with 
half a meal of food and I had secured six caribou before sleeping. 
This time we landed with no food at aU and had two caribou, a 
hare and a seal within six hours. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

HISTORIC MERCY BAY 

THE landing was made on the east side of Mercy Bay because 
that way the route was shorter. According to the maps 
Mercy Bay ought to be only some ten or fifteen degrees west 
of south from Cape Russell, and we had made a course so as to land 
on the west side when we should have taken a course twenty or 
thirty degrees west of south. Cape Russell is either placed too far 
west on the maps or Mercy Bay too far east. We later came to the 
conclusion that the trouble is with Mercy Bay. July 15th we crossed 
the bay and landed and camped about a mile from the monument 
erected in 1853 by McClure. We intended to land exactly at 
the monument but were prevented by very bad conditions of mud 
and water. 

Mercy Bay is one of the historic places of the North. It was dis- 
covered by McClure in the Investigator the fall of 1851. The pre- 
vious winter had been spent in Prince of Wales Straits near the 
Princess Royal Islands. After a vain attempt in the spring to get 
north through the straits into Melville Sound the Investigator had 
proceeded south around Nelson Head, up the west coast of Banks 
Island and east along the north coast. It was especially on the 
north coast that she got in close touch with the ice, being repeatedly 
in extreme danger between the heavy pack and the precipitous cliffs. 
These dangers had so impressed themselves on the ship's company 
that when they came to a bay to which they could escape from the 
open coast, they named it "the Bay of God's Mercy." It was free 
of ice then and promised well as a winter harbor, but the following 
summer the ice never left it and they were compelled to spend a 
second winter. The amount of game secured was only enough to 
give a little variety to the diet, the crew had already been for 
a considerable time on short rations, and plans had been made for 
a retreat by most of them to the mainland. This retreat would 
almost certainly have ended like the Franklin retreat farther south, 
indeed with greater cause. But just in time a message came from 
Melville Island saying that Kellett and McClintock were wintering 

359 



360 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

at Bridport Inlet. This was not an accident but resulted from the 
fact that the previous spring McClure had sent a message to Mel- 
ville Island to be deposited at Parry's Rock, Winter Harbor, telling 
the location of his ship, and Kellett's party had found it. 

After consultation the Investigator was abandoned, most of her 
stores and gear being previously placed in a depot on shore. The 
crew marched safely over the ice and reached England as passen- 
gers on other ships. McClure was thus not only the first to dis- 
cover the Northwest Passage (October, 1850) but the first to make 
it in the sense that he and his men traversed the entire distance 
although their ship did not. These were the first men to make 
a complete circuit of the western hemisphere, for they had come west 
across the Atlantic, past the south end of South America, north 
through the Pacific and then east through the devious channels be- 
tween the islands, and thus home. 

When McClure was in Banks Island he came in no contact with 
Eskimos and it seems improbable that they knew while he was 
there of his wintering in Mercy Bay. The spring of 1911 I had from 
some old men in Prince Albert Sound, Victoria Island, an account 
of how the Eskimos discovered the abandoned ship and the depot 
probably two or three years after McClure left them. The food, 
clothing and the like were of no value to the Eskimos, but there 
were two classes of articles that were to them beyond price — the 
iron and other metal work, and the soft wood. 

Familiar as I was with Eskimo customs, I was surprised when 
my informants made this distinction between the soft and the hard 
wood. They explained that the hard wood was almost as difficult to 
make anything out of as caribou antlers and not nearly so durable. 
In other words, they saw no use for hard wood except to replace 
bone or horn, and bone or horn was better than hard wood. But 
the soft wood was a superior variety o^ the driftwood which they 
were familiar with and very useful. What they did was to take 
barrels, no matter what they contained, and break them up with the 
object of using the hoops. The staves being of hard wood were 
no more valuable than the food or rum contained in the barrels. 
Similarly, boxes containing clothing were opened, the clothes thrown 
away and the boxes made up into arrow shafts and the like. 

When the Eskimos discovered the Investigator the news soon 
spread east and south and Mercy Bay for a long time became a 
Mecca to the Eskimos. But eventually, between the rusting of the 
iron and the pillaging of the Eskimos, the depot was completely 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 361 

rifled. Before this time the Investigator had sunk or else drifted 
away, my informants did not know which. One year she had still 
been on the beach and the next she was gone without a trace. A 
man whom I judged to be under thirty had been a boy of eight or 
ten when the last party had thought it worth their while to go to 
Mercy Bay.* 

In view of the fact that Mercy Bay had for two winters been the 
headquarters of a great polar expedition we were surprised to find 
comparatively little correspondence between the map and the land. 
The bay is not unlike itself on the chart, but there are islands in it 
that are not indicated on the map, while the conspicuous sandspit 
that is indicated at Providence Point does not now exist. But the 
remarkable thing was that just west of Mercy Bay where the map 
indicated a nearly straight coastline there is another bay almost 
as conspicuous. The land on both sides is high, almost mountainous, 
the bay is three or four miles wide and eight or ten miles deep. 
In it is the mouth of far the largest river in Banks Island; a river 
which, as we later learned, drains as large a part of it as any two 
or three other rivers put together. 

Thinking that McClure's winter quarters had been correctly lo- 
cated, partly because we knew that one of the men on his staff bore 
the title of astronomer, we were particular to get good observations 
at the place. We did secure fair ones despite unfavorable weather. 

It was here one of our two chronometers failed us. At first we 
did not know which it was. That is the trouble with having only 
two and is the reason why one should carry three or more, for then 
the one that differs from the other two is recognized to be at fault. 
In our case the one given me by O'Neill was supposed to be losing 
fourteen seconds and the new one should have been gaining eight 
seconds, making a difference of twenty-two seconds per day, with the 
new one gaining. We compared them daily and had found their 
rate reasonably constant so far, but at Mercy Bay the new chronom- 
eter began to gain less and less and finally actually lost. It was 
a good many days later, however, before it stopped altogether. 

While we were waiting for observations we took the boat tar- 
paulin, now about worn out, and cut it up to make pack bags 
for the dogs. One team was composed of big dogs which, because 
of great strength and long legs, were able to carry from twenty to 
forty pounds a distance of ten miles per day ; for short distances the 
strongest could carry fifty or sixty pounds. But the other team 

* See ''My Life With the Eskimo," Chapters XVII and XVIII. 



362 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

vere small, about the ordinary Eskimo size. They were consequently 
weak, so that they could not carry more than from fifteen to thirty 
pounds, and so short-legged that they dragged in the water whatever 
they carried. We accordingly made a sled for these dogs to pull, 
out of the front halves of our pair of skis. 

The five days we were in camp at Mercy Bay we supposed that 
McClure's ship and depot had been near his monument and it sur- 
prised us to find no remains there beyond half an armful of broken 
barrel staves and the bent and rusted bottom of one small tin can. 
On July 20th, our observations and preparations finished, we started 
south, and discovered that the depot must have been about a mile 
south of the monument. Here was an oval pile of coal, perhaps 
six or eight tons. At first sight it looked very much like a mound 
of dark earth, heavily overgrown with grass. Lying about were 
hundreds and perhaps thousands of barrel staves, broken or whole. 
A few of these had been split but bore no other sign of having been 
worked up. Neither did we find any indication of Eskimo work 
on any other piece of hard wood. There were endless quantities of 
adze chips and knife shavings, but all were from soft wood, thus 
confirming the story I had picked up in Prince Albert Sound of the 
Eskimos using the soft wood and disregarding the hard. These 
Eskimos had told me also that when they last visited Mercy Bay 
there were left only two or three pieces of iron so heavy that they 
did not know how to utilize them. This also was confirmed by our 
finding only two pieces of iron, one an ice anchor and the other a 
grappling hook, both too heavy for working by any method known 
to the Eskimos. 

Of the tons of food carefully deposited by McClure and later 
thrown away by the Eskimos no sign remained except one brown 
heap, perhaps half a bushel. It was soft and had no odor, and I 
thought it might have been peas or flour, but Thomsen thought 
there was a slight resemblance to the odor of cheese from the in- 
terior of the heap. We found leather boots decayed until the leather 
broke like cardboard. But what interested me most was the degree 
of weathering of the oldest adze chips and shavings. This corre- 
sponded, it seemed to me, to the weathering of shavings found by 
us the previous year at the Eskimo campsites on the west coast 
of Banks Island, and meant that most of these campsites dated from 
the period just after the Investigator depot had been discovered, 
say 1855 to 1860. This confirmed the estimate previously made 
that few if any of the campsites we saw were over a hundred years 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



363 



old. This does not apply to the village site at Cape Kellett, which 
may easily be older by several centuries. All about the depot were 
scattered the campsites. Huge quantities of shavings showed the 
Eskimos' occupation while they were there and the bones of polar 
cattle indicated what they had lived on. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

FIRST CROSSING OP BANKS ISLAND [1915] 

FROM Mercy Bay we attempted to make a straight course for 
Kellett, but within seven or eight miles came to the river that 
enters the sea six miles west of the Bay and found it far too 
large for crossing. At first we did not realize the size of it, and de- 
scended into the valley and followed the winding course inland, ex- 
pecting every moment to come to a fording place. When we did come 
to gravel rapids where the river spreads out to two or three times its 
ordinary width we went down to it with confidence and were aston- 
ished to find that even here it was over six feet deep right close to the 
land. This showed the folly of following the bank of the river, which 
was difficult and caused delay, so we climbed out of the valley, trav- 
eling south a mile or two away from it, and attempting to save time 
by cutting across the bends. As usual, I walked a few miles ahead of 
the others, hunting. This now served the additional purpose of 
guiding the men, for by observing me on the sky line they coyld 
tell in advance where the bends of the river were and how to make 
short cuts. 

The second day out from Mercy Bay I killed three big bulls, 
which meant more than enough meat, but seal blubber had run 
out and we needed fat. With thirty or forty pounds of clear fat 
accumulated, cows or yearlings would now serve for a satisfactory 
diet. 

It took us eight days and perhaps seventy-five miles of travel 
to get to a place where we could finally ford the river. Fortunately 
it led almost straight south and therefore not more than twenty or 
thirty degrees out of our road, and when it was just beginning to 
turn to the east we found a ford. The ford was about three feet 
deep with a width of eighty yards, and the current was so strong 
that it would have swept us away had we not carried heavy ballast 
on our shoulders. The unloaded dogs swam after us. We had ta 
cross in three relays to get all our stuff over, and on the third cross- 
ing some of us were a little light. I think it was Storkersoh who was 
nearly swept off his feet. When I felt myself in danger of floating 

364 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 365 

off I turned back and picked up a stone weighing thirty or forty 
pounds and with this on my shoulder crossed safely. 

Soon we began to see moulting white geese and these increased 
in number as we proceeded south. When no nests were found we 
concluded that they were mostly or entirely males. Now and then 
a bird was visible that we had not seen farther north. The first 
golden plovers appeared July 27th and the same day blackheaded 
terns. The smaller gray tern we had seen July 15th at Mercy Bay. 
Although these were the first of either species we saw, we found 
later that both go up to Melville Island. 

On this overland journey Thomsen had to break himself of the 
salt habit and the tobacco habit. When we landed at Prince Pat- 
rick Island from the sea ice we had thrown away everything that 
we considered unnecessary — the primus stoves for which we no 
longer had kerosene, a few odds and ends and six pounds of salt. 
I do not know why we had taken so much in the first place, for 
Storkerson, Ole and I the previous year had found our meat tasted 
better after we quit using salt. Ole had been so convinced of this 
that during the winter he had used no salt at his trapping camp. 
I had reacquired the habit at the ship, for the cook seasoned the 
food in the ordinary way, and Storkerson had picked it up again 
at his own camp where his wife insisted on using salt. But we 
were ready to give it up and Thomsen was not, and as a special 
concession he had been allowed to bring along his own private salt 
can. He had now come to the bottom of it. 

It has usually been my custom, and will always be so hereafter, 
to require tobacco users to stop its use either before leaving the 
home camp or at the time of starting.* But on this trip I had 
allowed the carrying of tobacco. About the middle of the trip 
Storkerson voluntarily quit so as to give Thomsen enough to take 
him through. But Thomsen's use of it had been a little rapid and 
about the time we left Melville Island his real tobacco was gone. 
Thereafter he chewed pieces of cloth in which it had been carried, 
and when that was done, small pieces of his own pipe and later the 
pipes of Storkerson and Ole. We were not much beyond Mercy 
Bay when even these had given out, and I had the interesting 

* "I have always selected men for my parties who used neither tobacco nor 
spirits. . . . Tobacco is . . . objectionable in polar work. It affects the wind 
endurance of a man, particularly in low temperature, adds an extra and en- 
tirely unnecessary article to the outfit, vitiates the atmosphere of tent or 
igloo, and when the supply gives out, renders the user a nuisance to himself 
and to those about him." "Secrets of Polar Travel," by Robert E. Peary, 
New York, 1917, pp. 74-77. 



366 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

opportunity of watching a man who had to give up salt and tobacco 
at the same time. 

No Eskimo I ever saw was as fond of caribou marrow as Thom- 
son was. When we killed the three fat bulls just after leav- 
ing Mercy Bay he ate so much that he was ill and his digestion was 
out of order for two or three days. At least this was my inter- 
pretation of it but he maintained that the trouble was the lack 
of salt. It took us twenty days to cross the island at an average 
rate of about ten miles per day, and towards the last Thomsen 
said that he no longer had much hankering for salt but still wanted 
tobacco badly. When we finally arrived at the base his first thought 
was to have a smoke, but he took no pains to add salt to his first 
meal cooked by Levi. When I asked him he replied that the food 
seemed a little too salty as it was. He had always used salt heav- 
ily, and under ordinary circumstances would have added a good 
deal of salt to dishes similarly seasoned. 

At other times I have had experience with men who have said 
that they found it harder to break the salt habit than the tobacco 
habit. In general the time of greatest hankering for salt is about 
two or three weeks after you have ceased to use it. If you con- 
tinue longing for it six or eight weeks after, you will find on trial 
that this longing has been artificial (or ^'psychological") in the 
sense that the taste of salt will not prove pleasant. I have known 
no one to welcome the taste of salt after being six months without 
it. When a white man has been a year without salt it becomes al- 
most as unpalatable to him as it is to the Eskimos or Indians who 
have never used it; with this difference, that the white man knows 
from experience he will come to like it again, but the native has 
the opinion that he never will. 

In dealing with Eskimos we have found that those who work 
on ships or who for any reason are compelled to eat salted food, 
acquire the salt habit about as quickly as they do the habit of 
tobacco smoking or that of eating some such strange food as bread. 
Sugar we found in Victoria Island to be peculiarly distasteful to the 
natives, and even children of no more than four or five objected 
violently to the taste of candy, sugar, sweet preserves, canned fruit 
and the like. Eskimo infants too young for formed tastes naturally 
take to sugar quite as readily as infant children among white people. 



As usual at this season we traveled at night. This had every 
advantage over day travel except that when we tried to get sextant 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 367 

observations, especially at noon, we frequently failed to do so 
through oversleeping. This emphasized the value of the alarm clock, 
an item of equipment that I have neglected to mention. There are 
few things we find more useful. We commonly camp at six or 
seven in the morning and take a time sight for longitude before 
going to sleep. We then set the alarm to ring at about 11:30, 
which gives ample time to dress, prepare the mercury artificial 
horizon, and get everything ready for the meridian transit. But 
now we had left our clock at Mercy Bay and unless we actually sat 
up to wait for the noon altitude we usually overslept and missed it. 

The Eskimo camps we saw on the journey were of the usual type, 
some of the tent rings of stone and others of sod, and the bones scat- 
tered about of cattle, geese and caribou, the last named being rare. 
Evidently cattle and moulting geese had been the main sources of 
food. Stone caches in which meat had been protected from wolves 
were more numerous than the campsites and in everything there 
was evidence of tremendous slaughter of ovibos. Sometimes we 
came to places where fifteen or twenty skeletons lay within the 
space of one or two hundred square yards with only such bones 
missing as wolves might be expected to devour or carry off. This 
showed that entire herds had been slaughtered without any appre- 
ciable percentage of the meat being used. The character of the 
wood shavings indicated that parts from the interior fittings of the 
Investigator had been carried all over the island before being made 
into implements. We saw no campsites that did not have some evi- 
dence that the campers had been at Mercy Bay. It is, however, 
possible that some campsites may have been used several times and 
that it was merely the last users who had Mercy Bay products 
with them. 

This was one of our delightful summer journeys. It was late 
enough in the season for most of the mosquitoes to be gone and it 
was only one or two evenings that they troubled us. We were too 
far east in Banks Island for the thick fogs that lie on the west coast 
whenever the wind blows off the western sea, although the clouds 
did come over and give us two or three rainy days. When the wind 
was from the east the temperature rose to about 80° in the shade 
some days. The caribou were fat and numerous, and although we 
continued to carry no more than two or three days' provisions 
we always found a fat bull before the dog packs were empty. The 
dogs carried most of the heavy things, the men part of the bedding, 
and towards the last the guns and field glasses only. Bedding is 
tolerably safe when the packs are heavily ballasted with meat or 



368 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

some such thing, in which case the bed skins can be tied in small 
bundles on top of the dogs' backs. 

One illustration will show a peculiar danger inherent in this 
travel. I had been hunting ahead and was approaching some cari- 
bou that were about a mile off our course. Both these caribou and 
I were in plain sight and the men should have seen us, but they 
did not see us and went right by. This exposed them to a danger 
from which I protected them ordinarily, that of coming over a 
hill crest without warning into close quarters with caribou. 

That is just what they did. Storkerson knew we needed meat 
that evening and instead of looking after the dogs he commenced 
blazing away at the caribou. He had fired two excited shots, both 
without hitting, when one of the other men shouted to him to catch 
the dogs. It was too late then. Out of the thirteen dogs Thomsen 
and Ole were able to get hold of only four or five and the rest rushed 
in full pursuit of the caribou. It happened that the packs of some 
of them were heavily ballasted with stone, the meat ballast being 
gone, and the smaller dogs were unable to run very fast. Some of 
the bigger ones, however, even with their thirty or forty pounds, 
were soon out of sight a mile or more away, following the herd. 
They happened to run in my direction and I was able to head them 
off. Only one dog escaped me. 

This was the middle of the day and we should have been able to 
travel another four or five miles, but we had to camp and search for 
this dog. The greatest danger was that his pack might come off 
in such a way as to drag on the ground while still fast to his neck. 
Some dogs will bite themselves loose but this particular dog had 
never been known to do that, and I was afraid that if his pack came 
off he might be tethered by it until he starved to death. Luckily we 
found the pack, for he had been able to clear himself after he shed 
it. But it was hours afterwards when the dog himself came back. 

As I tell it, this does not sound like a dangerous adventure. But 
I have heard of many cases where the consequences were serious. 
I know an Alaska Eskimo who with his wife and family was hunting 
about six days' journey inland, when all of his dogs ran off with 
their packs after a herd of caribou. The packs had been so light 
and so well strapped that the dogs were able to run fast and far. 
The Eskimo camped for two days hoping for the dogs to come back. 
He then retreated to the coast, living on berries and roots all the 
way, for the dogs had carried off all his ammunition. He and his 
family barely escaped with their lives. The dogs were never heard 
of again and doubtless starved to death. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 369 

There are dogs that know how to find their way home. But in 
the sense of a permanent dwelling place the Eskimo dog has no 
home, for the camp is always moving. It is rarely that a dog when 
once lost finds his way back. If he is recovered by the owner it is 
usually either through accident or because the dog finds another 
camp and is eventually returned by people who recognize him and 
are able to tell where he belongs. 

A good story to illustrate this point can be cited from the Mik- 
kelsen-Leffingwell Expedition of which I was a member. When they 
were starting out for their ice journey they camped three or four 
miles west of the winter base, and during the night one of their dogs 
ran away. They thought he had run home. It is impossible to say 
what the dog's own idea was ; possibly he went in pursuit of a polar 
bear. He appears to have gone right past his own home and past 
many Eskimo camps for he was picked up a week or so later on 
the verge of starvation at a camp forty or fifty miles to the east. 
The arrival of this dog under those particular circumstanCes^gave 
rise to a rumor that the whole ice exploring party had perished and 
that the dog had come in off the ocean ice^ the sole survivor." This 
is not an exceptional but a typical story of what happens to dogs 
in the North that for one reason or another get separated from their 
human companions. 

On this journey we had one more example of how easy it is to 
misjudge size when the thing judged is at an unknown distance. 
We had been seeing nothing but cows and other lean caribou for 
two or three days and were nearly out of food. If we saw no bull 
this day we would have to kill anything we could get. I had fallen 
behind a quarter of a mile instead of being about two miles ahead, 
and when the men came to the top of a hill I saw them drop down 
and start crawling towards me, the dogs following. This meant that 
they had come suddenly in sight of game on the other side. It must 
be a bull, otherwise they would not have taken such pains to con- 
ceal themselves. Sure enough, Storkerson and the others told me 
when I caught up that the biggest bull they had ever seen was right 
on the other side of the hill. When I went to the top of the hill the 
animal had probably moved off, for now it was about half a mile 
away. I looked at it through the glasses and saw it was a young 
calf. I had already told the men to make camp, so I went ahead 
and killed it. It was so small that one man could easily carry it on 
his shoulders. 

The only sure way of judging caribou is by some physical pe- 
culiarity other than size. The age and sex can be told by the color, 



370 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

by the shape of the horns and by the manner of carrying the head 
even when still. But the best way is to tell by a combination of 
these characters and especially the walking or running gait. An 
Eskimo or other experienced hunter can tell the sex and age, and 
by inference the size, of an animal as far as he can see it if it is 
moving. But by mere apparent size no one can tell a big animal 
from a small one when there is nothing by which to judge distance. 

August 7th, when we were thirty or forty miles northeast of the 
home base, I saw with the glasses a row of sod monuments of the 
kind used by Eskimos when driving caribou into an ambush. These 
might, of course, be old ; but they looked very black and so we turned 
out of our course to investigate. Much to our surprise we came in 
sight of an inhabited Eskimo camp of the type so familiar to me 
from Coronation Gulf — stones set on edge for the drying of meat, 
and a small caribou skin tent with the hair side out. 

The family belonged to the Minto Inlet group. It was a man 
named Kullak, with his wife Neriyok, their daughter Titalik of 
about ten years (as we could tell by the fact that her face had just 
been tattooed) and the boy Herona, perhaps six years old. They 
told us that in the spring they had been encamped on the ice in 
Prince of Wales Straits when Wilkins, Crawford and Natkusiak 
passed that way, going towards Coronation Gulf. This gave wel- 
come news that Wilkins had made good progress that far and the 
reasonable assurance that he had reached our mainland base before 
the breakup of the ice. Wilkins had given them information as to 
the location of our Cape Kellett base, and three families had come 
over to visit us for trading purposes and to spend the summer living 
on moulting geese. 

They inquired eagerly whether we had seen any cattle and when 
we said that we had not, either this year or the year before, they 
gave it as their opinion that all of them had now moved away from 
Banks Island. ' That is always the way with the Eskimos and the 
northern Indians. They can never conceive of any animals being 
exterminated, and when none are any longer found in any district 
the explanation given is that they have moved away, usually be- 
cause some taboo has been broken which has given great offense to 
the animals and has induced them to abandon the locality. Kullak 
said that three or four years before when he had been on south- 
eastern Banks Island polar bear hunting, some cattle had come 
down to the coast and had been killed, and he had heard of other 
people killing them in that vicinity since. This spring, however, 




The Women Carry Anything Fragile Wrapped up in Clothing. 





Summer Travel with Pack Dogs. Copper Eskimos. 




^^^^^^^>«^^^s 



A Summer Cache, Copper Eskimos. 




^'^:M^B^^i>S% 



k ,^ >;fWt--<X*i^*?^5l;r.V 







jf*\' , » *^i' 







":-.#i'i^*?#- 



A Summer Camp on the Prairie, Copper Eskimos. 



'i * 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 371 

he had come through that very district without seeing any signs. 
Tyhich had disappointed him greatly. 

The other two families of Kullak's party were a little farther 
north but they all intended to visit us at Kellett later in the year. 
They told me great stories of the wonders they had seen at Kellett 
and of the kindness and hospitality of our people, but they also 
marveled at their lack of intelligence in certain lines. They told as 
an extraordinary thing that our people used to go long distances 
from camp with guns to get a few geese. They had, they said, vol- 
unteered to show them how to get geese and had gone a short dis- 
tance and driven a flock of moulting geese down to the camp where 
they had been killed. Captain Bernard later told us that they had 
gone about five miles and driven about five hundred geese like a 
flock of sheep right down to the house. 

Kullak gave it as his opinion that our people had been living on 
very inferior food and had been almost starving until he and his 
party showed them how to get geese. Having found the party 
without meat he could not conceive that the other food which they 
were eating instead was anything but an emergency ration. His 
own people never eat roots or berries in any quantity unless they 
are starving and seldom even taste them, and his inference was, 
therefore, eminently natural. 

As we were about to leave Kullak's camp he came to me with a 
daintily made pair of white sealskin slippers which he wanted to 
give me. When I asked him the reason he said that his wife ex- 
pected the birth of a baby in a few days and he wanted me to see to 
it that she would have easy delivery and that the child should be 
a boy. 

This was one of the least pleasant incidents that ever befell me 
among the Eskimos. I saw every uncomfortable possibility. Kul- 
lak had not the slightest doubt that I could by magical means con- 
trol the birth both as to its safety and the sex of the child. If the 
childbirth turned out difficult or if the sex was other than male, 
there would be no explaining to him that anything but ill-will on my 
part was at the bottom of it. On the other hand, if I refused the 
present he would assume my ill-will from that moment and would 
equally blame me for whatever went wrong. Accordingly, I could 
do nothing but accept the slippers and promise that everything would 
be according to his desires. 

As soon as we were away I explained the situation to my com- 
panions who saw nothing serious in it. But when we got to Kellett 



372 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

where Storkerson and Thomsen had a chance to talk with their 
wives they began to see what was involved. Both Mrs. Storkerson 
and Mrs. Thomsen believed that Kullak would certainly look upon 
me as a murderer if either his wife or the child were to die and 
that he would undoubtedly be greatly displeased, though both were 
to live, if the sex turned out to be female. Mrs. Thomsen, who 
was the more old-fashioned of the two, was even herself of the opin- 
ion that I could control the sex of the child if I wanted to, and that 
I should have no excuse if I did not. 

Apart from the occasion of the slippers, the visit to this Eskimo 
family had relieved our minds. We now felt sure Wilkins had not 
been prevented by the early breakup of the ice from reaching the 
base of the southern section of the expedition. The Star might be 
expected at Kellett any day. We also knew that everything was 
going on well at the base camp. As the Eskimo report was that our 
people were short of meat except for the geese, I shot four caribou 
about twelve miles northeast of the base and asked the men to skin 
them and to bring home their dog packs loaded with meat, leaving 
all our other belongings at the deer kill. We would later send back 
from the camp to fetch them. 

Then I hurried on and arrived at the Kellett base camp on 
August 9th, one day ahead of the estimate we had made in Mel- 
ville Island. Levi was there alone. I give here my diary entry 
summarizing the information which he gave me on my arrival: 

'^Monday, August 9: NEWS: All has gone well in general. 
Nine Eskimos were around for several days the latter part of July 
and gave us several hundred geese. Levi and Bernard together 
killed one caribou and Bernard two caribou and one bear. They 
had also secured numbers of hares, ducks and ptarmigan. They 
once set a fish net but a seal carried it off. A new sod house has 
been built one hundred yards west of the old one and there we 
intend to winter. They (Captain Bernard and Levi) had concluded 
(because of our being, in their estimation overdue) that if we were 
not dead we were on Prince Patrick Island unable to cross and might 
come home after the ice formed in the fall, but not before. Con- 
siderable driftwood has been found on the beach and piled up near 
Cape Kellett. Bernard has made a wagon and has gone with Mrs. 
Storkerson and Mrs. Thomsen to fetch our dory (from Storkerson's 
trapping camp thirty miles north). A considerable ethnological 
collection has been made by purchase from the Eskimos. All our 
provisions are in good order and there is enough, except of con- 
densed sled rations, for our real needs if no (whaling) ship comes. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 373 

If one comes, I shall have to buy vegetables, milk, coffee and but- 
ter to keep the men in good humor." 

Nothing further of interest was noted during the next few days 
except that my party were mildly ill because of the change of 
diet. When you go off a mixed diet to a diet of meat alone, you 
never feel any worse for the change, — usually better. But when 
you have been for months on a diet of meat you almost always feel 
under the weather for two or three weeks after coming back to the 
mixed diet. I imagine the reason to be that meat is such a bulky 
food that the stomach gets accustomed to large quantities. Then 
when you eat the richer "civilized" food and fill the stomach as 
much as you used to with meat you overload it. It is likely that 
were one to go on a strict ration as to quantity no ill results would 
follow the change from meat to a mixed diet. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 



AUGUST 11th was a momentous day. About quarter to four 
in the afternoon a schooner was sighted coming from the 
southeast and heading for Cape Kellett, some ten miles 
to the west. There was a heavy sea running, for a gale of the pre- 
vious day had not yet abated, and we at first took the ship to be 
the Star bound for the shelter of the bight behind the Kellett sand- 
spit. But a good look through the glasses showed the snub nose 
and the characteristic outlines of Captain Louis Lane's Polar Bear. 
We should have preferred the Star, but the coming of any ship was 
an event. I set out along the beach to get an interview, should 
the Bear run into shelter behind Kellett as I expected she would. 

Driven by the strong wind she made much better speed than I, 
and dropped anchor behind the sandspit while I was four or five, 
miles away. I learned later that they sighted me at about three 
miles. One of the Eskimos aboard saw me when looking the land 
over through his glasses for possible caribou. The captain and the 
ship's company then took a look and speculated upon who it could 
be. The opinion was evenly divided. Half the Bear's crew guessed 
I was a shipwrecked sailor off the Sachs. Somehow the idea had 
got abroad that the Sachs had been wrecked at Banks Island. How 
it started is hard to say unless somebody dreamed it, for she had 
come north the previous year with the intention of wintering, and 
naturally nobody could have heard from her since, one way or the 
other. The second half of the Bear's crew thought the man on the 
beach was one of the Victoria Island "blond Eskimos," over here 
on a summer hunt. 

When I got to the end of the sandspit, half a mile from the ship, 
a whaleboat was lowered and came towards land with six men 
rowing and three or four passengers. Through my binoculars I rec- 
ognized Captain Lane, Constable Jack Parsons of the Herschel Is- 
land Mounted Police, and Herman Kilian, engineer of the Polar 
Bear. Presently I heard from the approaching boat shouts of 
"He's not an Eskimo. He's got field glasses — he must be one of 

374 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 375 

the crew of the Sachs." Presently I heard Constable Parsons say, 
"I think that's Stefansson," to which Captain Lane replied, ''Don't 
you think it. The fishes ate him long ago." A few yards nearer I 
heard Kilian say, ''By God, that is Stefansson." There were con- 
tradictions from several others but my identification was soon agreed 
on and Captain Lane shouted an order: "Don't a damn one of you 
move till I shake hands with him!" The boat touched the beach 
and the captain jumped out. His men delayed just long enough to 
obey him and then scrambled out after, and I received the most 
enthusiastic welcome of my whole life. 

Assuredly the idea most definitely connected with the Arctic 
seems to be one of starvation, and Captain Lane's first thought was 
what he could give me to eat. He said he had the best cook that 
ever came to the Arctic and that the ship was full of good things. 
Now what would I like? I had only to say what I wanted and the 
cook would prepare me the finest dinner I ever saw. I tried to 
make clear that while I was hungry for news my appetite for food 
was very slight. In fact, the excitement had taken away what little 
I might have had. As for that, I had been in the North so long that 
I could think of nothing so good as exactly what we had been eat- 
ing on shore — caribou meat. I had the delicacy to refrain from 
stating to Captain Lane that none of his food was as good, but I 
tried to put him off by explaining how eager I was for all sorts of 
news that I knew he could tell me. But these diplomatic protests 
evidently rather worried him, so I finally asked for some canned 
corn. Corn has always been my favorite vegetable yet I don't 
think I had eaten half a dozen spoonsful before I forgot to con- 
tinue. 

The Karluk was what concerned me chiefly and Captain Lane 
began to give me news of her. Incidentally he made some refer- 
ence to "the war." Two or three times later during the next five 
minutes "the war" was mentioned either by him or some one else. 
At first it made no impression on me, but later I inferred that the 
Balkan War was still going on or had broken out afresh. Wilkins 
had been through two years of that war as a moving picture pho- 
tographer and I knew from him as well as from the newspapers that 
conditions in the Balkans were such that war might break out at 
any time. But finally some one mentioned that some of the Karluk's 
men had gone to "the war." It was only then that I realized this 
could scarcely be a war in the Balkans and I asked, "What war?" 

There was a chorus of replies. "Don't you know about the 
war? Didn't you know that the whole world was fighting?" Some- 



376 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

how it seemed to them impossible that anybody could not have 
known. 

Then Captain Lane in a few sentences told me that more than a 
dozen nations were at war, and all the "great nations" except the 
United States. Even in the neutral countries many of the indus- 
tries of peace had been nearly discontinued, making way for those 
of war, and wealth was being piled up by the sale of weapons and 
munitions to one or another of the combatants and frequently to 
both. As for the "Laws of Nations," most of them had been broken 
and it was understood that those not yet broken would go upon oc- 
casion. "War psychology" had taken the place of the calmer, more 
orderly thinking of former years. Even in the neutral countries 
passions were highly inflamed and in the countries at war elaborate 
efforts were being made to stir up hatred as a means of securing more 
united support for war measures. 

The crew of the Polar Bear were mainly sympathizers of the 
Allied side and they told what had become ordinary stories of 
German atrocities. They said, too, that the German people were 
being deceived by their rulers into the support of a war of aggres- 
sion which they would not tolerate if they knew the facts. But 
there were four or five German sympathizers who said the stories 
of German atrocities were "Allied propaganda" and that Germany 
was fighting a just and a defensive war. Feeling ran high aboard 
the Bear as everywhere else, but the German sympathizers were in 
a minority and dared to present their side only by asking me "in 
fairness" to read some American-German papers they had. 

The Allied sympathizers said the net was already tight about 
the Central Powers, they were closely blockaded, starvation was al- 
ready weakening them, and they could not long hold out. The 
German sympathizers said their armies were victorious on every 
front, that there was food to last for ten years, that the Allied 
courage was broken and that German victory would soon come. 

That is the way the news of the Great War came to me, August 
11, a year and half a month after it started. The Bear had left the 
last telegraph connections in Alaska some three weeks before, so 
they brought news of nearly twelve months of fighting. There 
was hopeless confusion in this news on every point except the black- 
ness of the cloud that had descended upon the earth. The American 
newspapers and magazines aboard were equally at variance. There 
were articles telling of horrible German atrocities and articles say- 
ing in effect that none had been committed. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 377 

The Captain and crew of the Bear agreed upon one prognosti- 
cation as to the war; some said one side would win and some the 
other, but all said the war could not last many months longer and 
a few thought it would be over before they were back at Nome in 
September. 

The question of how the news of a world cataclysm would strike 
a person who heard of it only when the tragedy had been a year 
in progress seems to have been generally interesting to newspaper 
editors and paragraphers. First a reporter of the type who finds 
the news or makes it, sent over the wires a "story." I have paid a 
clipping bureau for several hundred copies of this account, and it 
must have appeared in every American paper that has a telegraph 
service, and in many European papers. A story that isn't true is 
usually interesting — that is what it is made to be. This was ex- 
tremely interesting, as the number of editorial comments proved. 
It was usually printed under the heading, "Stefansson Wept." 
After a dramatic account of how the news of the war was brought 
to me comes the climax: Under the crushing effect of the tragedy 
that had come upon the world I broke down and wept. These 
were not the ordinary snivelings of a sentimentalist — they were the 
tears of a hero who had borne all the terrors of the polar wilderness 
without flinching and who had met stolidly even his own semi- 
miraculous rescue from the jaws of death. For it appeared the 
Polar Bear had rescued me from starvation. (That she did so 
with a warmed-up tin of corn was not specified.) 

The last ripples of my escape from death took the form of 
advertisements: 'The man who rescued Stefansson rides an Over- 
land." The ads. did not say that my "rescuer" bought the Over- 
land, and I hope he got it for nothing. Certainly I have every 
reason to wish him well — not the inventor of the story but Captain 
Lane himself, who did nothing wilfully to start the yarn and who 
did me many favors then and after. His coming did not have even 
a family resemblance to a rescue, but it was of great significance in 
our expedition, as the sequel tells. 

Like any great event in life, such as the death of a friend or 
relative, I found this news of a world war hard to realize. It was 
certainly hours, perhaps it was days, before it began to weigh upon 
me as it did then for all the years after. Through the circum- 
stances of there being several German sympathizers on the ship and 
through the nature of some of the American magazine articles I 
read later, I never had the feeling of certainty that our side would 



378 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

win, especially as the Americans had not entered the war. I could 
not understand why they had kept out, but if they had incompre- 
hensibly refrained so far they might continue to refrain. 

But I did think the war could not last another full year. So my 
mind continued fearful of the news we might receive next year, 
or whenever we next got news. 

This may seem the logical place to record what had happened 
to the Karluk, for Captain Lane brought me considerable informa- 
tion. But much of what he told was contradictory — he had heard 
many conflicting reports — and it was only after I had seen Hadley 
that the situation became clear in my mind, so I shall reserve the 
story. 

Of the affairs of the southern section of the expedition Captain 
Lane could tell that the Alaska and Star had both reached a harbor 
on the south shore of Dolphin and Union Straits in August, 1914. 
(This has since been named Bernard Harbor, after Captain Joseph 
Bernard of the Teddy Bear,^ a nephew of our Captain Peter Ber- 
nard.) The Star had remained but Dr. Anderson with the Alaska 
had returned to Herschel Island for a second cargo. On her way 
east the Alaska had gone aground in the harbor at Cape Bathurst 
in a gale and by the time they got her afloat it was too late to pro- 
ceed east, so she had to winter. Dr. Anderson had left her in charge 
of Captain Sweeney, going himself to Bernard Harbor by sled in 
the fall. During the winter Engineer Daniel Blue had died of 
scurvy, from which disease Captain Sweeney had barely recovered; 
the rest of the crew were Eskimos who, through their different food 
habits, had not suffered. 

Captain Lane had learned these things on his way east. He was 
able to add that the Alaska this summer had proceeded to Herschel 
Island to meet the schooner Ruby on which the Government was 
sending us supplies. These were the supplies that had failed to get 
in last year, 1914, which showed how foolish it would have been 
to rely on them then. It w^as to protect ourselves against their 
possible non-arrival in 1914 that I had bought the outfit of Captain 
Andreasen and Duffy O'Connor, a purchase now fully justified by 
the event. 

About the Star in the present summer Captain Lane knew noth- 
ing directly. He had been told of how she had been taken away 
from Wilkins the previous year and he was of the opinion, on the 
basis of reports heard on the mainland, that Wilkins would be un- 

*For some account of Captain Joseph Bernard of the Teddy Bear see 
references in the index to "My Life With the Eskimo." 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 379 

able to get her back. To corroborate this he cited that it had been 
an unusually early spring everywhere and especially east of the 
Mackenzie. At Cape Bathurst there had been easterly winds and 
open water for a month. Dolphin and Union Straits must be long 
ago free of ice, and the Star should have arrived two weeks ago if 
she was coming. The conclusion was that she had either been 
wrecked in the east or else Dr. Anderson had refused to give her 
up to Wilkins. 

After full discussion I fell in with this view that the Star was not 
coming. The Captain was able to give me the definite information 
that large supplies were being sent in to us by the Government on 
the Ruby with my old friend Captain Cottle in command — the most 
experienced skipper now in these waters and a man who would bring 
his ship in if any one could. Lane felt sure the Ruby was already 
at Herschel Island unloading supplies into the storehouses there, ac- 
cording to her orders. The Alaska would be there to receive the 
stores wanted for the southern section, but she had no engineer and 
her engine was crippled. Captain Lane thought there might be a 
spare engineer on the Ruby but we feared Sweeney would not sup- 
pose himself to have the authority to hire him. It seemed doubtful 
whether the southern section any more than we at Kellett would 
get their supplies from the Ruby unless we did something about it. 

If the Star was not coming my only chance of making use of the 
supplies the Government had sent in to Herschel Island was to en- 
gage the Polar Bear to fetch such of them as we needed and to land 
them for us as far north of Kellet as she could. I accordingly char- 
tered the Bear and we started for Herschel Island August 12th 
with the intention of towing the Alaska, if necessary, to Bernard 
Harbor and then coming up to Banks Island to land the supplies for 
the northern work. 

On the way south Captain Lane had time to go more into detail 
as to news that affected the expedition. 

The death of Storkerson, Ole Andreasen and myself was 
everywhere agreed on. The story confirmed, with many additions, 
everything Wilkins and Bernard had told me a year ago to that ef- 
fect. All along the coast from Point Hope to Cape Bathurst my 
companions and I were personally known to the Eskimos, all of 
whom were grieved and none hopeful. Not only was our death cer- 
tain on grounds of Eskimo theory, but there was much concrete evi- 
dence. Between Cape Bathurst and the Mackenzie, near Point 
Atkinson, a sledge with dead dogs still attached by the harness had 
drifted ashore. Both the sledge and one of the dogs had been rec- 



380 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ognized as mine by an Eskimo who had once traveled with me. At 
Herschel Island the summer of 1914 the Eskimos had seen with 
their telescopes from the top of the island three men on an ice cake 
four or five miles out in the pack. This was reported to the police 
and boats were launched, but the weather was bad and much ice 
about. Only wooden boats were available and in these it was 
unsafe to go in a gale out among the tumbling and jarring floes, 
and the attempt was given up. It was agreed that had skin boats 
(umiaks) been available our lives might have been saved. 

This was not our only appearance. A little earlier in the sea- 
son we three had been seen on a cake of ice near Icy Cape, some 
600 or 700 miles west of Herschel Island. In that case also rescue 
had failed, although umiaks were available. Probably the polar 
bears that were impersonating us heard the excited cries of the res- 
cuers and made off; or maybe they were seals and dived. 

Among the white men on the coast only three had believed we 
might be alive — John Firth, the Hudson's Bay Company's factor 
at Fort Macpherson, Inspector J. W. Phillips of the Royal North- 
west Mounted Police, and Captain Matt Andreasen, Ole's brother.* 

I have not since 1913 seen Mr. Brower or Mr. Hopson at Point 
Barrow, and I still hope they may have been among the optimistic. 
Our fellow members of the expedition had apparently been unani- 
mous in thinking us gone and had written to that effect to Ottawa. 

At Ottawa at least two men still had faith in us — R. W. Brock, 
director of the Geological Survey, later Deputy Minister of Mines, 
and G. J. Desbarats, the Deputy Minister of Naval Service. Mr. 
Brock was no longer, properly speaking, at Ottawa, for he was on 
leave of absence as Major Brock of the Canadian Expeditionary 
Forces. Mr. Desbarats was at his post as when we sailed, although 
now heavily laden with the burdens incident to the expansion of 
the work of the Naval Service in war time. He was therefore still 
in charge of the affairs of the expedition. 

I had discussed with Mr. Desbarats fully my ideas of the meth- 
ods of polar exploration, and have been deeply gratified to learn 
that he, together with a handful of my intimate friends in various 
countries, held to the view that in striking north over the ice from 
Alaska I was merely carrying out instructions according to the 

* Many of these facts were told me either by Captain Lane or by his 
second officer, William Seymour, a man whom I had known for years and 
liked, since we took turns using the same bunk, by his invitation, when I 
was Captain Cottle's guest on the Karluk in 1907 between the mouth of the 
Colville River and Herschel Island. But I have since picked up some addi- 
tions and corrections which are here embodied. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 381 

method which I advocated. The American scientific societies which 
originally backed the expedition, and later the Canadian Govern- 
ment, had put the expedition in my hands knowing I held these 
theories, and he considered it illogical to become panic-stricken 
through finding out that I had carried no supplies with me out on 
the ice when I had always maintained that this was a safe thing to 
do. While others theorized on how and when and where and why 
we had died, he assumed as a working hypothesis that we were alive 
and in Banks Island. 

But the universal feeling at Ottawa was against the probability 
of our being alive. Opinions of various polar authorities, both 
geographers and explorers, had been sought and were uniformly ad- 
verse. In effect, they amounted to saying that the theory on which 
our work was based was unsound and the undertaking had in conse- 
quence been foredoomed to failure. 

Of the polar authorities Peary was the most careful in his pub- 
lished opinions. I had discussed all my ideas with him several 
times. He was one of the fairest-minded men I ever knew and the 
readiest to yield a point on the appearance of new evidence no mat- 
ter how strongly he might previously have been committed to the 
opposite view. Peary himself had said in print that no food or 
fuel could be secured on the polar sea, but he had also said * 
that he had seen a seal in some open water only about 250 miles 
from the Pole (near N. Lat. 86°). When I pressed the point that 
this seal was both food and fuel and obtainable, he admitted it but 
thought the seal had been an exception. But he conceded that as he 
had never paid much attention to signs of seals, because he had 
thought them rare or absent, they might really have been numerous 
where he supposed them few. So our discussions had ended by his 
saying: "Maybe you are right. But be careful and turn back in 
time." Similarly now, when his opinion was asked by reporters or 
the Government, he was less definite than most in his pessimistic 
attitude. In fact, as he told me later, he based his opinion of my 
probable death mainly on the report that it had been my plan when 
I left Alaska to return to Alaska within a few weeks. This failure 
to carry out a plan which he thought I had announced, together with 
the admittedly hazardous nature of the undertaking, were his main 
reasons for thinking us lost. 

The reason why every one thought we had intended to return 
to Alaska was merely the common view that unless we did so we 

♦"The North Pole," p. 250. 



382 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

would starve. Yet my own letter sent back with the support party 
from the ice to Dr. Anderson had been clear that he was to assume 
if I did not come back before midsummer, 1914, that I had gone to 
Banks or Prince Patrick Island. In the hurry of separation out 
on the ice I had not made out for transmission to the Government 
a duplicate of these instructions. Indeed I did not think it neces- 
sary, for I supposed that if I did not come back Dr. Anderson would 
send to Ottawa a copy of my instructions to him and would sum- 
marize them in his report. But he did neither, and the Government 
and the press were left in the belief that my intention had been to 
come back to Alaska, and that my failure to do so, instead of mean- 
ing our probable success and our safety in Banks Island, meant the 
failure of the enterprise and our death at sea. 

Thus it came about that Peary and others based their gloomy 
views in part on reports from which a correct statement of our plans 
had been suppressed. Thus came about, too, various other misun- 
derstandings, among them some that hampered McConnell in his 
attempt to organize a "rescue expedition." 

When I engaged McConnell as a member of our expedition I did 
so by telegram. As he was not known to me then and I was taking 
him on the strength of favorable report merely, I worded the tele- 
gram to mean that I would take him on trial for one year, sending 
him home at the end of that time if transportation were available 
and I had concluded that I did not want him. The arrangement 
was to be terminable at my option but not at his. At least that 
is what I intended it to be, but he understood that it was an arrange- 
ment for one year only on both sides. I soon found him one of my 
best men even under the handicap of a weak ankle that had been 
sprained before and kept getting sprained on slight provocation. 
When it came to our parting on the ice in April, 1914, he considered 
his term of engagement over and wished to go home. Although his 
services had been most satisfactory I could not urge him to stay, 
partly because the telegram by which I had engaged him was quite 
open to his interpretation and partly because I thought the weak 
ankle was a drawback. I suggested to him, however, that if he 
changed his mind he might come north with Wilkins in the Star. 
Wilkins and he were great friends. Thus we parted on the ice. 

McConnell later decided not to join the Star but to proceed south. 
This may have been a fortunate decision, for it enabled him to take 
an important part, as will appear later, in the rescue of the Karluk 
crew from Wrangel Island. In that capacity he came in harrowing 
contact with the scenes and circumstances of the loss of eleven men 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 383 

of the Karluk crew. He formed the opinion that eight of them might 
still be alive and when he got home initiated the plan of a rescue ex- 
pedition, having in view both the eight missing men of the Karluk 
and our party of three. 

The connection of the eight with the rest of the Karluk party had 
been severed near Wrangel Island. Captain Theodore Pedersen 
had through the press advanced the view, concurred in by many, 
that if we were alive we must be on the ice near the place where 
the missing men of the Karluk had last been seen. Pedersen as- 
sumed a strong westward drift of the ice north of Alaska and had in 
mind the common report, doubtless reliable, that in the spring 
after we left shore, especially in May and June, there had been 
enough open water north of Alaska to prevent our landing there. 
His argument was based like the rest on the same false assumption 
that we had intended coming back to Alaska. I quite agree that 
had we tried to do so we should either have lost our lives in a too 
hazardous attempt to get ashore over rapidly moving ice made 
treacherous by summer heat, or else, as he said, we should have 
been swept west past Point Barrow. 

McConnell's rescue plan made use of similar reasoning. Air- 
planes were to be employed. A ship would take the airplanes to the 
north coast of Alaska and they would make reconnoitering flights 
of seventy-five or a hundred miles from shore, then twenty-five or 
fifty miles at right angles to the outward course and then back 
to shore, landing twenty-five or fifty miles east or west of the 
starting point. Each trip would be a non-stop flight resulting, he 
considered, in the search of from two thousand to five thousand 
square miles of ice and in our rescue if we were on this ice. All this 
was to be done in July to September, 1915. 

The rescue plan met discouragement of several sorts. Most 
people were sure of the death of all eleven of us and deprecated the 
"further useless risk of life." Many who got their opinions from 
airplane propaganda in the newspapers thought the flying part 
feasible. But sober authorities knew the airplane was not then up 
to the stories of the press agents. Orville Wright, while expressing 
no opinion on the practicability of the rest of the plan and having 
full sympathy with any attempt to rescue men in distress, em- 
phasized the impracticability of the airplane part. 

But most decisive (and most pleasing to me when I learned it) 
was the opposition of the Canadian Department of Naval Service. 

Before our sailing I had discussed with the Minister of Naval 
Service, Mr. Hazen, now Sir Douglas Hazen, the question of rescue 



384 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

expeditions. Subsequently I wrote at his suggestion a letter ad- 
dressed to him, giving my opinion that if our expedition, or any part 
of it, were not heard from for a year or two no alarm need be felt 
and nothing should be done towards the rescue of any one whose 
approximate position and actual distress had not been directly and 
credibly reported. As for my own section, I gave it as my opinion 
that if we got into difficulties from which we could not extricate 
ourselves it was unlikely that any one could find us in time to help 
us and without exposing his party to at least as great a danger as 
we were in ourselves. It was my belief that in case of voluntary 
or involuntary separation from our ships our party could live on 
game and walk out to some outpost of civilization on the north 
coast of Asia or America or on the west coast of Greenland. 

Mr. Desbarats explained when approached by McConnell that 
his department had my own written opinion that no "rescue" should 
be attempted. He considered the probability small that if our 
definite location were unknown any one could find and help us. 
So his reply was in substance that, apart from accidents, they had 
confidence in our ability to look after ourselves and that their sup- 
port of a rescue expedition would be inconsistent with a policy for- 
mulated by me and agreed on by them and me before our expedi- 
tion sailed. 

As for the eight men of the Karluk, Mr. Desbarats relied on the 
opinion given him by Captain Bartlett that these men had not 
been properly outfitted when they were separated from the rest of 
his party and must for that reason have died long before. 

While McConnell seems to have pinned his faith to the argu- 
ments advanced by Captain Pedersen, he published the statement 
frequently that it had been my intention not to come back to Alaska 
but to proceed to Banks Island. This was most explicitly set forth 
in an article by H. E. Rood in the New York Sunday Sun accom- 
panied by a map showing a star at northwest Banks Island where 
the North Star was to look for us in the summer of 1914. But 
somehow this point of McConnell's failed to impress itself on those 
most interested in our fortunes, probably for two reasons. First, 
McConnell himself was not proposing to search for us in Banks 
Island. And second, everybody who knew the truth had sup- 
pressed the information that my orders had been disobeyed and 
that the chief danger to my party lay in the fact that our poorest 
ice ship, the Sachs, instead of our best one, the Star, had been sent 
to Banks Island. The Sachs did not even have orders .to come as 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 385 

far as the rendezvous where we were waiting for the Star, but only 
to Kellett, more than a hundred miles farther south. This poor 
ship mighthave been expected to fail even with proper orders, leav- 
ing us in difficulties through the failure of support we had counted on. 

The Arctic is considered by many an unpleasant place to wait 
for a ship that has never been sent. Certainly Greely found it so 
at Cape Sabine when he lost 18 out of 25 men through the mis- 
carriage and disobedience of orders by those who were to meet him 
or to make a depot for him at an appointed place, and his was but 
one of many similar arctic tragedies. My own faith that we should 
not starve so long as we had ammunition could have been little 
comfort to those whose conviction of our death was based on dis- 
belief in the prevalence of game in the Arctic, and disbelief in the 
ability of white men to get what game there is. Furthermore, as 
McConnell said, we had when we started only 400 rounds of ammu- 
nition to feed three men and six dogs for more than a year, and this 
might have been expected to need supplementing if we made no con- 
nection with one of our ships. 

The star on the Sun map where the Star was supposed to meet 
us and didn't try to, was the only danger sign in the whole situa- 
tion, but nobody saw the meaning of it. 

I am truly grateful to McConnell for his good intentions and his 
efforts to publish the truth. But I cannot think of anything less 
tempting in itself than being rescued. It was bad enough to be 
saved from imminent starvation by Captain Lane with a can of 
warmed-up corn. It would have been worse to have an airplane 
swoop down on you just when you were comfortably winding in the 
wire after a three-mile sounding and sniffing the fragrance of boiling 
fresh seal meat. 

So far I have considered these rescue proposals from the point 
of view of my party of three. As for the eight men that were lost, 
their situation will be made clear in that section of the Appendix 
given to Captain Hadley's story of the Karluk. I shall say here 
merely that I concur in the belief that long before McConnell could 
have launched his expedition they were dead. 

The only concession made by the Government to the demands 
for a rescue expedition was that they requested all whalers and 
traders who go up in the western Arctic to keep a lookout for us 
or traces of us. Captain Lane had held these requests in mind 
while on the western part of his cruise. When once he got as far 
east as the vicinity of Banks Island the possibility of finding any 



386 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

of us had been given up, but he was on the alert for signs of the 
Sachs which, because of her twin propellers, he had expected to get 
damaged or wrecked as soon as she got into the icy waters on the 
west coast of Banks Island. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 



A SUMMER VISIT TO HERSCHEL ISLAND 

ON the way to Herschel Island we stopped at Cape Bathurst to 
see if there were any news of Wilkins or of Dr. Anderson's 
party in the east. There was none of either. Many anxious 
inquiries were made of me regarding Captain Bernard. The news of 
his death, I was told, had come a few days before. Since I had left 
the Captain entirely well at Kellett only yesterday it was news of 
peculiar interest to me. My informants were positive, however, and 
when I tried to engage Eskimos to go back with me to Banks Island 
the rumor was started that I was trying to conceal the fact of Ber- 
nard's death so as not to scare others from going north with me. 
There were only two or three white men at Bathurst at this time, but 
I gathered that they no less than the Eskimos were in doubt which 
story to believe. When I started to trace the yarn I soon got it 
back to a man who had dreamt it — but the dream had been very 
vivid. Even when I was able to produce the dreamer, and in spite 
of the corroboration of my story by the Polar Bear's men, some of 
the Eskimos still believed in Bernard's death. In these days of 
modern skepticism such faith is refreshing. 

Although I now had little hope that Wilkins would arrive with 
the Star, I left instructions for him with Tom Emsley of the Rosie 
H* If he came he was to proceed to Kellett and thence as far 
north as he could get along the west coast of Banks Island, pref- 
erably to the northwest corner. Cape Alfred. 

On the way to Herschel from Bathurst we fell in with a school 
of bowhead whales. This seemed such a wonderful chance to get 
dog feed for next winter that we devoted half a day to the killing 
and cutting up of one of these great animals. It was rather large — 
said to be between sixty and seventy feet long. The shot that 
killed it was fired by Constable Parsons. Parsons had been an 
officer on a sailing ship before he became a policeman and he is the 

* See various references to the Rosie H. and her owner, Fritz Wolki, in 
''My Life With the Eskimo." 

387 



388 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

sort of competent man that can turn his hand to anything. Still 
it was a surprise to him as well as to the rest of us, I think, that he 
was able to despatch this huge beast as neatly as the most expert 
whaleman. 

At Herschel Island our arrival on August 16th caused great ex- 
citement. The Ruby was there beginning to unload ; there were also 
four smaller schooners, the Hudson's Bay Company's Macpherson, 
Captain Fritz Wolki's Gladiator, Captain Matt Andreasen's Olga, 
and the Church of England's Atkon (or The Torch) . As ice pilot on 
the Macpherson was Jack Hadley, from whom I was now at last 
to hear the full story of the Karluk tragedy. There was also our 
own Alaska. Including sailors, police and missionaries there were 
probably over fifty white men with perhaps two hundred Eskimos. 
All but a few sailors were old friends of greater or less intimacy who 
had been thinking us dead now for more than a year, some of them, 
I believe, with considerable regret. But my arrival was a triumph 
for Inspector Phillips and Captain Andreasen who had been main- 
taining the difficult contention that we were alive. Captain Andrea- 
sen, in fact, had just the day before been through a tall argument, 
including a bet, with Captain Wolki, who had drawn on twenty- 
six years of experience as a whaler and trapper at or east of Herschel 
Island for arguments showing the folly of trying to "live off the coun- 
try" in the Arctic. "Stefansson had a wonderful run of luck wh^i 
he lived off the country from 1909 to 1912," he had argued, "but it 
was luck, and luck will turn." When the Captain came forward 
through the crowd to shake hands as I landed, he remarked that he 
had lost his argument and a bet but was glad of it. Matt Andreasen 
went back and forward through the crowd saying, "I told you so." 

It became evident as soon as I talked with Captain Cottle that 
we should have to wait several days to get at the stores he had 
brought us, for some of the most important items were in the bottom 
of the ship and would not become available until several hundred 
tons of the Hudson's Bay Company's goods had been unloaded. This 
was the largest consignment of trade goods ever brought in a single 
ship to Herschel Island, though but a small fraction of the huge 
quantities that used to be brought annually by the whaling fleet, 
which numbered more than a dozen ships each year from 1889, when 
the first vessels to winter east of Point Barrow did so at Herschel 
Island, till 1906 when the invention of a commercial substitute for 
whalebone brought the price of "bone" down from four or five dollars 
the pound to thirty or forty cents. A large bowhead whale has 
2,000 pounds of "head bone" and was worth $8,000 to $10,000 and 




The Harbor and Village, Herschel Island. 




Eskimo Boats and the Alaska, Herschel Island. 




Mamayauk, Half-white Girl, 
Cape Bathurst. 




JL 1 ■ 

Copper Eskimo Girl. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 389 

fortunes were made in whaling. The largest catch I have heard of 
was sixty-three whales in two years by a single vessel. Since many 
other ships also caught large numbers, the market was temporarily 
glutted and the price dropped to half, but even so the profits were 
fabulous. But after 1906 a big whale was worth only from $400 
to $800 and the whaling fleet vanished from the Arctic in a year. 

Arctic whaling is not likely to be resumed except for fertilizer 
or for food. Let us hope the good sense of the world will soon 
begin to discountenance whaling for anything but food. There are 
several countries now where whale-meat is considered good to eat. 
If we do not care to accustom ourselves to whale-meat, interna- 
tional arrangement might be made so that the people who already 
like it can get it, leaving that much more beef and pork for the 
others. That money can be made through turning whale-steaks into 
fertilizer should not be argument enough for allowing such waste 
of food to go on when the world is drifting into an inevitable meat 
shortage. The chemists have learned to make fertilizer out of thin 
air, but steaks are as yet beyond their power. 

The large cargo of building material and trade goods shipped 
to Herschel Island this year on the Ruby was to lay the foundation 
for a wide expansion of the Hudson's Bay Company's business. 
It was doubtless the opportunity for pure trading created by the 
disappearance of the whaling fleet that had induced the ^'Great 
Company" to make this new departure, but in part it was our ex- 
ploratory work of 1908-12. Until that time it had been supposed 
that between Cape Bathurst and ICing William Island there were 
no longer any Eskimos with whom trade could be established, but 
during those years the work of Dr. Anderson and myself had shown 
that most of these coasts, both the mainland and Victoria Island, 
were as thickly populated as Eskimo countries generally are (though 
that means only two or three persons per mile of coast) , by a people 
so little reached by modern commerce that their weapons were 
bows and spears, their cutting and piercing implements copper or 
stone, and cloth so little known among them that the pieces that 
had drifted in by intertribal trade were considered to be the skins 
of peculiar animals. 

This was an opportunity which the Company, in spite of its 
245 years, had the youth and foresight to grasp. Their way of 
doing it was to send in the cargo of the Ruby and a small power 
schooner, the Macpherson. Part of her cargo the Ruby would un- 
load at Herschel and part at Bathurst, laying the foundations of two 
stations. Later the chain of trading posts would be lengthened east- 



390 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ward.* The man to whom had been entrusted the management of 
the new district was Mr. Christy Harding, an Englishman born in 
India but long identified with trading in the far north. When I 
first went down the Mackenzie River on my way to the Arctic in 
1906 he was in charge of Fort Resolution on the south shore of 
Great Slave Lake, and I saw him there again on my second journey 
in 1908. His wife, who was with him now, was born at Fort Simp- 
son, only about two hundred and fifty miles south of the arctic circle, 
the daughter of Julian S. Camsell, who for a long time was in charge 
of all the Company's posts in the arctic and sub-arctic section of 
the Mackenzie valley. 

Our compulsory wait while the bottom of the Ruby was being un- 
covered I employed in engaging several Eskimo families. The men 
we needed, though experienced white men would have been as good if 
available ; the women as seamstresses are priceless. Our field cloth- 
ing is almost entirely made of the skins of seals and caribou and in 
securing these the best white hunters are usually better than the best 
Eskimos. But the preparation of the skins is tedious to any one 
but Eskimo women brought up to the idea that it is their proper 
work, while such skill as theirs with the needle is acquired only 
by years and generations of practice. All their needlework is ex- 
cellent and their waterproof seams are probably the only really 
waterproof sewing in the world. Our bootmakers do not conceive 
that a seam may be in itself waterproof, and attain their ends by 
rubbing or soaking some sort of greese into the needleholes. Among 
the Eskimos no seam is considered passable unless it is waterproof 
without greasing. If a good seamstress sees you rubbing oil on 
boots she has made she is likely to become angry, considering it an 
insult to be suspected of a seam that needs grease to cover up de- 
ficiencies of workmanship. When a woman finishes the last seam of 
a waterboot she inflates it like a balloon, twists the mouth as the 
small boy does with a paper bag he is going to ''bust," and waits 
for a few minutes to see if any air is escaping. She gives it a more 
severe test by applying steady pressure which multiplies the strain 
several times. Then she holds the seam to her cheek to detect the 
escape of air, or near a steady lamp or candle-flame to note the 
slightest flicker. 

Seamstresses such as these we need so badly that we are willing 

*Two more posts have since been started, Fort Bacon on the south 
shore of Dolphin and Union Straits, and a temporary station, which will 
soon be permanently located, on the south shore of Coronation Gulf about 
a hundred miles east of the Coppermine. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 391 

to engage along with them comparatively useless husbands and 
families of several children. And we even try our best to get these 
Eskimos, especially the children, to dress in the best flannels and 
silks we have been able to bring north with us — intended for use 
if we can't get Eskimo clothing — so as to leave the mother free to 
make clothes for us instead of her family. 

Besides seamstresses we needed sealskins, extra dogs, and many 
other things of which I was able to buy a good outfit. The spare 
time between these transactions I used in writing a report to the 
Government. I had but a few personal letters to answer, for of all 
the friends who commonly write when I am in the North, only 
one family, that of Mr. E. W. Deming, the artist, and some friends 
at the American Museum of Natural History, had written a line. 
The rest had supposed me dead. 

The Government itself had addressed no communications to me 
that year. All of them had been directed to the expedition's second- 
in-command, Dr. Anderson. I thought at the time that this must 
be because every one at Ottawa including even Mr. Desbarats had 
supposed me dead. I have learned since that this was not quite 
correct. Although Mr. Desbarats thought there was still chance of 
my being alive, he had understood from Dr. Anderson's reports of 
the preceding year that no communications could reach me in Banks 
Island directly. He knew the Star had been taken to Coronation 
Gulf, though he did not know it had been taken against my orders, 
as he had never received a plain statement of what the orders were. 
But he knew the Sachs had been sent to Banks Island, he knew 
her unfitness for those icy waters, and he feared the very thing that 
had happened — that she had been incapacitated for her search for 
us by injury from the ice. He accordingly reasoned that if I were 
alive I could not be reached except through a ship going north to 
search. 

Dr. Anderson's reports together with the opinions held at Ot- 
tawa determined the general tenor of the instructions for the year. 
These instructions may be summarized as follows: 

It was thought that the work of the southern section of the expe- 
dition should be terminated the summer of 1916 and the section 
should return to Ottawa in the autumn of that year. But the fate 
of my p rty up in Banks Island must not be left undetermined. 
Dr. Anderson should therefore send one vessel, and if necessary two, 
to Banks Island for the purpose of doing anything that might be 
there required. 

These instructions meant, when taken literally, that the work of 



392 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the vessels to be sent to Banks Island was one of rescue. The 
underlying assumption seemed to be that which was justified by the 
"facts*' as they were known at Ottawa — our foray into the ice might 
have been brave but it could not have been successful. The word- 
ing showed a concern about our possibly having survived an inevi- 
tably fruitless journey. But here we were safe, and successful to the 
extent of having proved that we could live by hunting where death 
from starvation had been looked upon as the inevitable sequel to the 
running out of stores brought along. Moreover, we had found land 
of extent as yet unknown. I felt sure that if I could have telegraphed 
these facts to Ottawa I should have received orders to proceed with 
our explorations. I decided to proceed and this decision was ap- 
proved at Ottawa when the reasons for it were presented in my 
reports. 

One of my reasons for chartering the Polar Bear had been that 
we might have to tow the Alaska to Bernard Harbor. I found now 
from Captain Sweeney that while the engine was in almost as poor 
a condition as reported, he was not so oadly off for an engineer, 
for some months preceding his death Engineer Blue had had for 
an assistant a Siberian native called Mike, who was now equal to 
the job so long as nothing went wrong. We feared, however, that 
if something were to break, which seemed not unlikely, his skill 
would be inadequate. Accordingly, I arranged with Captain Cottle 
for the release of one of his engineers, J. E, Hoff, who had signified 
his willingness to work for us if he could get his freedom from the 
Ruby. 

While we were still waiting on the unloading of the Ruby there 
arrived from the west the motor schooner El Sueno, commanded 
by her owner. Captain Alexander Allan, bound east along the coast 
beyond Cape Parry with no definitely selected wintering place. 
Trapping was the Captain's main object and he was carrying only 
half a cargo. This seemed an excellent opportunity to transport to 
Dr. Anderson supplies beyond what the Alaska would be able to 
carry, especially since the Government had sent us more goods than 
the Polar Bear and Alaska between them could possibly take on. 
I also learned from several men then at Herschel Island that Cap- 
tain Allan was a mechanic of more than ordinary skill and was 
considered in western Alaska, where these informants of mine had 
known him, to be unequalled in his ability to repair engines, es- 
pecially when the means at hand were limited. Captain Allan 
agreed that when the trapping season of the coming winter was over 
he should proceed to the base of our southern party at Bernard 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 393 

Harbor and help make the Alaska ready for the summer of 1916, 
as well as overhaul several gasoline engines which our men were 
using both for the propulsion of their regular launch and for other 
boats to which power could be attached. My success in making 
this arrangement with Captain Allan made me feel very much 
more at ease with regard to the future so far as the southern sec- 
tion was concerned. 

At this time the mission schooner Atkon, under command of 
the Reverend H. Girling, was ready to start but lacked two very 
important things: they had no experienced sailors aboard and 
there was no local man available who could guide them through 
the devious channels of the Mackenzie delta. Had the Atkon been 
a bigger boat and less heavily loaded she could have taken the open 
sea route, passing outside the delta shoals, but she was not strong 
and without really expert sailors this would have been too danger- 
ous. I had already arranged for the transfer of Hadley from the 
service of the Hudson's Bay Company to that of the expedition, 
and one of my recently engaged Eskimos, Illun, knew all the in- 
tricacies of the delta channel. I accordingly loaned Hadley and 
Illun to the Atkon to take her through as far as Cape Bathurst, 
expecting that they would get there long before we did, having 
several days the start. 

As our stay at Herschel Island kept lengthening, it became clear 
that before we could get our cargo aboard and the goods landed 
in Banks Island I should have had to pay out in chartering fees 
as much as the Polar Bear was worth. When I realized this I ap- 
proached Captain Lane on the question of whether the ship was for 
sale and found that she was. I eventually bought her. The price 
was necessarily high in view of the fact that selling the ship at 
this time would destroy all his prospects of profit from trading or 
whaling during this voyage. I had formed the opinion of the Polar 
Bear the year before that she was an ideal ship for our work and 
had so reported to the Naval Service, urging that if any ship were 
needed for work in icy waters (as, for instance, in Hudson's Bay) it 
would be well for the Government to buy her. Moreover, though 
the price seemed high at the time, it was not as much as Captain 
Lane would have been able to get had he gone south and disposed 
of his ship at the time when wooden vessels were at the top of their 
war price during the period of greatest scarcity of shipping. 

A condition of sale of the Polar Bear was that Captain Lane 
could get some other ship in which to take out with him his pur- 
chases of fur and those of his crew who did not care to enter the 



394 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

service of our expedition. For this purpose I was able to buy from 
Captain Wolki the small schooner Gladiator and hand it over as 
part payment for the Bear. 

The engaging of Eskimos as it had to be done at Herschel Island 
is by no means a simple thing. You cannot offer a salary for the 
year and let it go at that. You must arrange that the Hudson's 
Bay Company at Fort Macpherson gives ten caddies of tea to some 
remote relative and that the Mounted Police promise to transport 
a piece of baggage to some other relative. You furnish flour to 
a cousin, transfer a dog team to an uncle and altogether you may 
have to make one or two dozen special arrangements in connection 
with the engaging of a single family. What with the buying of 
dogs, the loading of cargo, and the finishing of reports to the Gov- 
ernment, I had no time to keep up diary entries, so that most of 
what happened during this time I have to write from memory. 
One of the results is that, although it is a rather important day in- 
the history of the expedition, I do not know on what exact day we 
sailed from Herschel Island although I think it was between the 
22nd and 25th of August [1915]. 

On arrival at Cape Bathurst we found, much to our surprise, 
that the Atkon had not yet arrived. We waited a day and the 
weather was excellent but still she did not come. Everyone began 
to fear shipwreck, and I was especially concerned about Hadley. 
Although so anxious to push ahead to Banks Island I could not 
think of leaving these men possibly stranded on some delta mud- 
flat, especially Hadley, who had already in the service of the 
expedition been through the trying experiences of Wrangel Island. 
Accordingly, the Gladiator under command of William Seymour 
was sent out to look for the Atkon. 

A day after the Gladiator started the Atkon arrived, having 
been merely delayed by getting aground several times in the shallow 
channels of the delta. The two ships must have passed in fog 
somewhere near Point Atkinson. We could not leave Seymour 
and his companions behind any more than we could Hadley, so 
now there was a second wait for the Gladiator. There are few 
enterprises so likely as a polar expedition to be turned from success 
to failure by the weight of a straw. On the basis of what we now 
know, this delay at Cape Bathurst put upon us some of the heaviest 
handicaps against which we had to struggle during the next two 
years. 

At Cape Bathurst we learned that, contrary to our best reason- 



r 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 395 

ing, the Star had arrived from the east a day or two after the 
Polar Bear had left, and I received a brief note from Wilkins say- 
ing that he had proceeded to Cape Kellett. Immediately upon 
the arrival of the Gladiator we crossed to Kellett. Wilkins had left 
there some days before and had proceeded up the west coast of 
Banks Island, with the aim of wintering somewhere near the 
northwest corner or on the north coast unless exceptionally favor- 
able circumstances should enable him to cross to Prince Patrick 
or Melville Island. 

On September 2nd Captain Lane left Kellett in the Gladiator 
with those of the Polar Bear crew who had been either unwilling 
to stay or unsuitable for our needs. On that day also the wind 
changed. For weeks it had been blowing nearly continuously off 
the land, with the west coast of Banks Island consequently open 
to whatever ship desired to sail north. But the currents in the 
Beaufort Sea are such that though the wind may blow steadily 
from the east clearing all the sea south of that latitude the heavy 
pack is never far distant. We knew immediately upon the setting 
in of the northwest wind that it would not be more than a day or 
two till the whole coast of Banks Island was blocked with im- 
penetrable ice to remain while the wind remained in any westerly 
quarter. 

Almost up to the moment of Captain Lane's sailing it had not 
been definitely decided who would remain with us as the crew of 
the Polar Bear. On the captain's recommendation I retained those 
men who were in the same capacities they had before occupied. 
My own inclination had been to make William Seymour commander 
of the ship, for I had known him most favorably for eight years 
and had the highest opinion of his ability. But as he had been 
second officer with Captain Lane where Henry Gonzales was first 
officer, I decided, upon Lane's recommendation and with Seymour's 
consent, to leave the relative rank unaltered, making Gonzales 
commander of the ship and Seymour first officer. Hadley was sec- 
ond officer, Herman Kilian was chief engineer and John Jones, 
formerly engineer of the Gladiator, was second engineer. Martin 
Kilian, Harold Noice, James Asasela, known as Jim Fiji, and the 
Eskimo Emiu, commonly called ''Split-the-Wind," were ranked as 
sailors. Before my purchase of the Polar Bear I had engaged 
Noice and Emiu for the purposes of sledge travel. Levi was to be 
transferred from the Kellett base to be steward of the Bear while 
Lome Knight, whom I had engaged with the Polar Bear, was trans- 



396 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ferred to shore at Kellett as an assistant to Captain Bernard. 
There were altogether thirteen Eskimos, counting men, women, 
and children. 

Although he had no official position on the ship, the ranking 
member of the party and the most important man was Storkerson, 
whom I took aboard at Kellett with his family. Ole I was unable 
to indue to stay longer, for he now had sufficient capital to buy a 
small schooner and start out upon the independent trading opera- 
tions which he believed were destined to make his fortune. He 
went out with Captain Lane in the Gladiator and I learned later 
that he eventually purchased that ship. Thus I lost the man who 
next to Storkerson was the best ice traveler I have ever known. 

To maintain the reserve base at Kellett Captain Bernard now 
had with him, besides Knight, Charles Thomsen with his family, 
and five Eskimos, two men, two women, and a girl of about ten 
year& 




In Midwinter Annie Thomsen Played Outdoors All Day. 




GuNiNANA AND Uttaktuak (Mrs. Lopez). 



Andre Norem 



CHAPTER XL 

ICE NAVIGATION AND WINTER QUARTERS 

WITH the northwest wind blowing there was occasion for 
hurry but we could not get away from the Kellett base be- 
fore the evening of September 3rd. Then we steamed about 
ten miles west to the Cape proper and on rounding it found that the 
ice was just beginning to come in to the land. The nights were 
growing dark and we decided to wait for the morning in the shelter 
of the Cape before deciding whether to try forcing our way up along 
the west coast. The next morning the ice was massed so heavily 
against the land that there was no hope of penetrating it. Offshore 
it was more scattered to the west and we steamed about ten miles 
beyond the Cape, but the moment we tried to turn northward we 
found everything solid. 

The only chance of getting north now appeared to be to turn 
east and try to reach Melville Island by means of Prince of Wales 
Straits. This had been attempted vainly both by McClure and 
Collinson in 1850 and 1851, but they had sailing ships, and with 
our advantage of power we might be able to do better. Further- 
more, there is always the element of chance, and we were as likely 
to find a better season than they did as we were to find a worse one. 

We made great speed towards Nelson Head with a favoring 
wind. Cape Lambton was passed about 7 P. M. and Nelson Head 
a little later. On rounding Cape Lambton we noted that the com- 
pass was unreliable. There seems to be a local magnetic pole 
somewhere in that vicinity, a thing which ships will in future do 
well to remember, for the water is so deep up to the sheer cliffs 
that in foggy weather one might sail right into them unwarned 
by the sounding lead upon which whalers rely in thick weather to 
signify the approach of land. The lead is a reliable guide on most 
parts of the mainland coast where the water shallows towards shore 
at the rate of only a fathom or two per mile, but it becomes a frail 
reed to lean upon in such places as this. 

About 9 o'clock the morning of the 4th we entered Prince of 

397 



398 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Wales Straits proper, and almost immediately came in touch with 
densely packed bay ice. But as the wind was from the Victoria 
Island side we were able to make northing by following the Victoria 
Island coast through the lane between the land and the ice kept 
open by the offshore breeze. 

Beyond Deans Dundas Bay the wind suddenly shifted and 
began to blow from Banks Island, bringing heavy ice rapidly down 
upon us. This looked serious, for there was no shelter and the 
ship was heavily loaded. In chartering the Polar Bear it had been 
agreed that Captain Lane should leave his own cargo in the bottom 
of the ship and that our goods should be taken in on top. Through 
the circumstances of having to pack things as rapidly as we could 
get them from the Ruby, it happened that, although some of our 
most valuable possessions were deep in the ship, many articles 
of the greatest importance were on the deck. When I purchased 
the Bear I would have given a great deal to have her free from 
Captain Lane's goods which, although of some commercial value, 
were only a handicap to us, as, for instance, several tons of canned 
fruits, vegetables and meats. Now when we saw the ice coming 
down I called both Gonzales and Seymour in consultation and 
asked whether it was practicable to get at and to throw away these 
canned goods. I thought it possible that in loading they might 
have kept a shaft open so that some of the material underneath 
might be accessible. Both officers agreed that the ship was a foot 
or eighteen inches deeper in the water than she ought to be for 
fighting ice, but that the canned goods and other worthless stuff 
were inaccessible. Had we lightened the ship it would have had 
to be by throwing away the deck cargo which consisted of the things 
we most needed, such as fuel oil for the engines, kerosene for lamps 
in winter quarters, and coal for fuel. The need for coal arose 
through the disadvantage of having a large crew composed of 
sailors who, never having tried it, were unwilling to live in snow- 
houses and must have a large frame house or something of the sort 
with a kitchen, a house so appointed that they could be fed and 
lodged in the style they were used to. 

Upon the strong advice of both officers^ I decided to put the ship 
as near the beach as possible and to unload enough cargo to lighten 
her a foot. We could then steam out in the ice in proper trim for 
dealing with it and try to come back later to pick up what we 
had unloaded. 

The unloading was rather easily done for the deck cargo con- 
sisted largely of gasoline in 100-gallon metal drums. We just 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 399 

threw them overboard and the northwest wind drifted them ashore, 
for the oil is so much lighter than sea water that, although en- 
cased in iron containers, it did not sink. In addition we unloaded 
several tons of coal and three or four tons of pemmican. We had 
the unloading done just in time to heave anchor and meet the in- 
coming ice about a quarter of a mile from the land, and were able 
to work our way out into it about half a mile, where we tied the 
ship to an exceptionally heavy floe. Within a few minutes there- 
after the ice was tightly pressed on all sides of us and the ship 
began to creak with the strain. Eventually she rose slightly 
through some of the ice getting underneath her and in that con- 
dition she was when I went to sleep. 

When I turned in in the evening we were two or three miles 
south of where our goods had been landed but when I awoke next 
morning we were a mile and a half north of the depot, for the 
current in the straits had changed and the ice had milled around 
until our cake was almost against the land. It drew enough water 
to ground before the ship did and she was well protected behind it. 

For several days the ice conditions continued so bad that there 
was no hope of advancing and by that time we agreed the season 
was too late for attempting to cross to Melville Sound. Deceived by 
the charts, we supposed that there was no harbor to the north of 
us in Prince of Wales Straits on either shore. An excellent harbor 
which we discovered later and named Knight Harbor after E. 
Lome Knight of our expedition is at the very northeast corner 
of Banks Island, and this would have made a comparatively ad- 
vantageous wintering place easily reached. Not knowing it ex- 
isted, we determined to winter where we were. 

I should, of course, have liked to get the ship to Melville Island, 
but her outfit was adequate for two years so that wintering here 
did not greatly worry me. I saw useful work ahead that could be 
advantageously done from this base, and trusted that next year 
with the full season at our command and with the ship in proper 
trim we should be able to get her to Melville Island at least, if not 
farther north. On deciding to make this location our winter quar- 
ters, I entered in my diary the following reasons why I considered 
the place not a bad one: 

(1) The only good sledge maker in our expedition was Captain 
Bernard at Cape Kellett. We had left with him what material 
for sledge making we had been able to get at Herschel Island, 
and it had been my intention, however far north the Polar Bear 
was able to go, to make a trip back to Kellett during the winter 



400 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

to get these sleds. This could be done conveniently by crossing 
Banks Island from where we now were. 

(2) Wintering on Victoria Island was advantageous in that I 
desired to study further the so-called "blond Eskimos" of Prince 
Albert Sound whom I had visited in the spring of 1911 without 
opportunity at that time for a stay of more than two or three 
days. I was anxious not only to study the language and customs 
of these people in their homes but also to purchase as large an 
ethnographical collection as possible to illustrate their manner of 
life. To do this now was important, for the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany and other traders were laying their plans for commercial 
development, and the Church of England already had a party of 
missionaries under way. Under the influence of these agencies 
the manner of life of the people would be sure to undergo a rapid 
change and whatever information or specimens we could not secure 
now would be in large part permanently lost. 

(3) We had been unable to get nautical almanacs or scientific 
instruments at Herschel Island, and one of the arguments for not 
straining ahead was that from this base I might be able to make 
a trip in the winter to the Alaska to secure them. 

(4) Victoria Island, which had been discovered by Franklin 
and Richardson in 1826, had been further explored by various 
British expeditions but the east and north coasts remained un- 
mapped. In 1905 Lieutenant Godfred Hansen, of Amundsen's ex- 
pedition which was then wintering at King William Island, had 
made an attempt to finish the coastline but had been able to do 
only about half of it. This would be a favorable base for us to 
finish the work. 

(5) Lastly, with the ship safe and with an outfit for two years, 
we had another year to look forward to, which was an argument 
for not taking undue risks this season. 

Activities of four kinds were now set in operation. First, 
parties were sent up and down the coast to scour it for driftwood. 
Booty in that line turned out to be small, for the average amount 
of driftwood on the coast was probably less than half a cord per 
mile and much of that was wet and decayed. 

Second, there was the hunting. This was undertaken by myself 
with the Eskimos, Pikalu, Illun and Palaiyak.* 

*Palaiyak, then as a boy half grown, had been with me through about 
half of my 1908-1912 expedition, and Pikalu had been with me off and on 
during the same period. For frequent references to them, see "My Life With 
the Eskimo." Palaiyak's photograph appears in that book opposite page 268. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 401 

The first day Palaiyak came upon seven bulls of which he 
killed six. Thereafter we got a few stragglers but in general the 
season was too late for getting caribou in this particular part of 
Victoria Island. It had been believed previously that no caribou 
winter in the island at all and the Eskimos of Coronation Gulf 
gave me direct testimony to that effect in 1911. We proved this 
winter, as I had suspected, that this idea is based on mere lack of 
information. The Eskimos are out on the sea ice all the winter 
where they have no opportunity for observing conditions inland. 
And besides, many caribou do leave the island most falls if not every 
fall, going south to the mainland. We found in the winter of 1915- 
1916 that the Eskimos of Minto Inlet were aware of the presence 
of caribou on the land although they made no attempt to hunt 
them, living entirely on seals and polar bears. 

The country inland from our winter base near Armstrong Point 
is one of the rockiest sections in which I have hunted in the North. 
There are not many spectacular outcrops to give the casual observer 
the feeling of it, but when you walk over the hills you find that 
the surface is finely splintered rock which wears out in three or 
four days a pair of boot soles that would have lasted as many 
months in ordinary arctic country. A corollary of this rockiness 
of the hills is that vegetation is comparatively sparse and confined 
largely to the lowland. This lowland naturally gets deeply cov- 
ered with snow that is blown off the bare hills, making the country 
ill suited to caribou in winter which doubtless is the main reason 
for their absence. Evidently they are numerous in summer, as 
we could judge by inuksuit of the previous year, which showed that 
both Eskimos and caribou had been here in considerable numbers. 

Inuksuit, or "likenesses of men" are used in caribou hunting 
by most or all Eskimos who hunt with bow and arrow. When a 
band of caribou is seen grazing quietly a council of all present is 
held and an ambush determined upon towards which the caribou 
shall be driven. This ambush is made at the angle of two long lines 
of monuments, the monuments being set up from fifty to a hun- 
dred and fifty yards apart, according to the character of the topog- 
raphy. In rocky country these are made by putting two or three 
stones one on top of the other to a height of one or two feet. 
If the herd is large and the drive is looked upon as important the 
two lines of monuments may be run out each a distance of five 
or six or even ten miles, although lines of two or three miles are 
more common. The angle between them may be anything from 
fifteen to forty-five degrees. 



402 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

At intervals of perhaps half a mile men, women, or even chil- 
dren of six or seven years are stationed and there must be at least 
one person at each extreme of the lines. The hunters with bows 
and arrows lie in ambush at the angle of the '^V" while the rest 
of the men and women form a crescent curve beyond the caribou 
so as to drive them towards the ambush. In my experience the 
driving is started by the men giving long howls in imitation of 
wolves. This generally makes the caribou restless and starts them 
moving slowly and uncertainly away from the direction from which 
the howls come. Sometimes, instead of the imitation wolf-howling, 
dogs which are held in leash are induced to bark. It may happen 
either deliberately or through accident that the caribou get the wind 
of these drivers, which usually has the same effect of starting them 
to leeward. The drivers gradually close in and the caribou enter 
the V-shaped area. 

Presently they see one of the people who stand in the line of 
monuments. Apparently they recognize these as human beings 
and dangerous enemies, or possibly they take them for wolves. 
Anyway, when they are once scared and get the idea that there are 
people or wolves in this line, their imagination appears to turn all 
the little monuments into a line of people. Hence the Eskimo 
name inuksuk, ''likeness of a man"; inuksuit is the plural form. It 
seems absurd that two stones, one on top of the other, reaching 
an elevation of only a foot, should be feared as much by the 
caribou as actual persons but that appears to be the fact. It 
seldom happens that the animals break through the line and usu- 
ally they are driven at a speed of from five to eight miles per hour 
towards the ambush where several of them are shot. It is here, 
when the people who have been standing at the sides close in on 
them from behind and when the caribou get frantically frightened, 
that some may break through and escape. 

The only person who kept a record of caribou killed by various 
members of the expedition that winter on Victoria Island was the 
steward, Levi, and his record seems to have been lost, but my im- 
pression is that we got between twenty-five and forty. In addition 
we got a great many seals, and a few polar bears. On September 
23rd, for instance, Illun secured five seals and I six, giving us on 
that day a ton of meat and fat. 

The third line of camp activity was unloading the ship and 
house-building. This naturally occupied most of the men. Hadley 
was architect and chief carpenter. There was lumber for a house 
and glass for windows. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 403 

This is an appropriate place for certain suggestions as to the 
building of houses in the North. To most white men it seems 
improper that the walls of a house should be anything but vertical, 
but to the Eskimos it seems proper and to me it appears sensible 
that instead of being vertical they should lean inward slightly. 
When a wall of boards is vertical it takes great skill even with the 
best of prairie sod to build a sod wall outside that shall not even- 
tually lean away from the house enough to make an air space, 
thereby destroying a great part of the protective value of the sod 
wall. But if the board wall slopes inward five or ten degrees from 
the vertical, any one can place sod so that it will hug the wall, 
eliminating the air space. Gravity takes care of that. 

Another idea of value in arctic house-building is to have the 
door low. We have outlined the principle in describing snowhouse 
building which applies in any house, that hot air is light and wants 
to rise while cold air is heavy and inclined to sink down. If in a 
cold climate a house has its door in the floor, the laws of gases and 
of gravity will take care that the cold air does not get into the 
house from below any faster than the warm air escapes at the top. 
This is the same principle applied in ballooning, where the bag is 
filled with gas lighter than air and the mouth of the bag turned 
down and left open without fear of the hydrogen escaping rapidly. 
If, on the other hand, the door is high, as in most dwellings in 
civilized countries, when the door is opened there is an inrush of 
cold air along the floor through the lower half of the doorway 
and an outrush of warm air through the upper half. In an exceed- 
ingly cold climate, such as the Arctic, where the temperature out- 
doors may be fifty below while the air inside has been heated to 
seventy or eighty degrees above, a great quantity of heated air will 
escape even with the most hasty opening and closing of the door, 
and much fuel is thus wasted. It cannot be supposed that getting 
the cold air into the house that way is advantageous for reasons of 
ventilation, because entirely other means must be used for con- 
trolling the supply of fresh air. We have always a chimney through 
which warm air escapes and in all except snowhouses some means 
other than the door for the gradual entrance of cold fresh air. 

But I must say that the discussion of a low door in a big frame 
house to be occupied by sailors is purely academic. You would 
have far more trouble in teaching your sailors the advantage of 
going in and out through such a door than you would in supplying 
fuel to counteract the greatest possible escape of heat, for in my 
experience sailors are of all men the most conservative. 



404 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

The fourth and most interesting thing we had to do was to 
survey the northeast coast of Victoria Island, and it was ,Storker- 
son's assignment from the time of landing to get everything ready 
so that he could set out as soon as the young rce formed along the 
coast. 



CHAPTER XLI 

AUTUMN IN VICTORIA ISLAND 

BY September 21st Hadley had the house finished and every 
one moved in. Of the two house-building ideas mentioned 
above, the inward sloping walls and the door in the floor, 
we had not attempted the low door and the inward slant of the 
walls had been used with the sides of the houses only and not the 
ends. This was of little consequence for no sod was obtainable and 
the walls had to be banked with snow. We found during the winter 
that enough heat escaped through the boards by conduction to melt 
a big air space between the snow banking and the board wall, nearly 
destroying the value of the banking and making this one of the 
coldest and most disagreeable houses that any of us ever occupied. 
The condensation of moisture on the inside was so great that 
streams ran down the walls, masses of ice formed behind the bunks 
and on the floor, and everything became wet. 

In part this was due to an excessive desire to be clean. So far 
as I know, few if any polar expeditions before ours have main- 
tained a liberal supply of water for washing and bathing at base 
camps situated where no appreciable amount of fuel could be se- 
cured locally. But we were a very cleanly people, especially the 
recently civilized Eskimos, with whom it is practically a matter of 
religion to take a bath once a week. Next to Eskimos sailors are 
in my experience the most insistent on bathing, for with them as 
with the Eskimos it has a certain amount of semi-religious signifi- 
cance — washing and bathing is in part a ceremony. We had only 
a limited amount of coal and we could furnish Levi with no more 
than one-twenty-fourth of it per month, for we meant it to last 
for at least two years. Had this coal been used only for cooking 
and then burned to make a dry heat for the house, everything 
could have been kept fairly dry. But such a large amount of 
ice had to be melted for washing that there was a vessel of ice on 
the stove nearly all the time, taking up a large part of the heat, 
and what heat there was consisted chiefly of steam from the cook- 
ing. Levi told me that some of the Eskimo women used to wash 

405 



406 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

their hands as often as ten times per day, but it seemed to us that 
attempting to restrict this was rather more disagreeable than en- 
during the damp. Personally I never interfered at all, for had the 
majority preferred a dry house with dry heat to a dripping house 
filled with steam, this end could easily have been attained. But 
the damp discomfort of the base camp furnished me another argu- 
ment for keeping to the dry and comfortable snowhouse camps we 
use when traveling and hunting. Except the winter 1911-12 when I 
was devoting myself to Eskimo linguistics exclusively, I have on 
none of my expeditions spent more than the least possible time at 
winter base camps. 

By September 21st the young ice had become fairly strong along 
the near-by land and Storkerson with a party of three set out, in- 
tending to make a depot on the northwest corner of Victoria Island, 
Peel Point. He returned next day, reporting that the strong ice 
extended only about eight miles north of the camp and that he 
had been unable to proceed farther. The reason for wanting a 
depot at Peel Point was that Storkerson was going to attempt his 
surveying expedition during the period of little daylight, returning 
long after the sun had ceased to rise at noon. This is the one time 
of year when it is not reasonable to hope that an extensive journey 
can be supported through hunting. The animals are there, but they 
are hard to find in the dark. 

Just at this time I suffered a slight injury through an accident 
with defective ammunition. On my expedition of 1908-12 I used 
the Austrian 6.5 mm. Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifle and found it most 
satisfactory. The advertised muzzle velocity was 2,560 feet. For 
the present expedition I was using the Mannlicher-Schoenauer as 
remodeled by Gibbs of Bristol, said to have a muzzle velocity of 
3,160 feet, attained through a considerable increase of the powder 
charge. I found the Gibbs modification excellent, if the blame for 
the sort of accident which happened to me September 22nd is put 
upon the ammunition rather than the rifle. 

This day I was sealing and had already killed and secured six 
seals. When the seventh appeared in the water a hundred yards 
away I fired but never knew whether I hit him, for as I fired I 
saw a flash of light and for several days thereafter saw very little 
more with my right eye. The shell had cracked from the primer 
out to the edge and about a quarter of an inch up the side. It 
seems unbelievable in examining the Mannlicher-Schoenauer that 
powder could come back through the bolt, but it did. The black 
spots made by it were on my nose and cheek and forehead. They 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 407 

were so conspicuous and hurt so much that I can only explain the 
slight injury to the eye itself by supposing that it was partly 
closed and protected. It was about a week before the inflamma- 
tion disappeared. 

Accidents of this sort occurred with our rifles about twice 
per thousand rounds of ammunition. I had two similar experi- 
ences in later years but in neither case did so much powder coma 
through, and there was no real injury except on this occasion. 
Storkerson had one or two accidents of the same sort but his eye 
was not hurt. It seems possible, therefore, that the rifle which 
I had at the time of the first accident was in some respects slightly 
different from the others. We had about half a dozen of these 
rifles and as I made no record of which one I was using at the time, 
I cannot say whether a second shell ever cracked in the same 
rifle. 

During the ver}?- busy time of the early autumn while we were 
making things snug for winter, all hands used to work every day 
including Sundays except the Eskimos. Of these Palaiyak, who 
had been with me on a previous expedition and with white men a 
good deal at Herschel Island, and Emiu, who had spent two years 
in Seattle and a good part of the rest of his life in Nome, Alaska, 
were the only ones who were willing to work with the white men 
on Sunday.* The rest, after religious services, spent their time 
mainly in card playing and in listening to the phonograph. 

By September 25th we had much cold weather and the ice was 
firm in the straits outside. Accordingly, Storkerson made his sec- 
ond attempt to reach Peel Point. This time he got within sight 
of it but could not round it nor proceed beyond, for everything in 
Melville Sound was open. He climbed to the top of a hill several 
hundred feet high near Peel Point and made sure that no ice was 
in sight for at least fifteen miles from land. It appeared to him 
from the position of the old ice which filled the straits only up to 
a point eight miles north of where the Polar Bear was wintering, 
that had we been able to make with the ship those eight miles be- 
fore the ice crowded down upon us, we should probably have been 
able to get across to Melville Island. 

The surface of the land near Peel Point was of just such broken 
rock as in the vicinity of our camp. Trying to cross such land with 
sledges in the fall is hopeless, for the steel shoeing would be worn 
away in two or three days — you might as well drag iron over a 

* For Eskimo ideas of Sunday observance see Chapter XXVII, "My Life 
With the Eskimo," under heading, "On the Conversion of the Heathen." 



408 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

paving of grindstones as over these hills. There was nothing for 
Storkerson to do but to make a depot of what he had with him 
and return to camp. He was back on October 1st and made his 
third and successful start on the 10th. The party consisted of 
four men, Storkerson and Herman Kilian to go the entire way, 
and Noice and Charlie Anderson as a support party. 

Before his start Storkerson arranged for taking tide observations 
in the straits. It was too early in the season for a snowhouse, so 
he pitched a double tent twenty or thirty yards from shore. The 
rise and fall of the water was observed on a long staff, graduated 
into inches, and driven like a post into the bottom and stuck 
through a hole in the ice. The hole was kept open, through the 
warmth of. the tent where a kerosene blue-flame stove was kept 
continually going, but when necessary water was heated and poured 
boiling into the hole. As the rise and fall was only a few inches 
between high and low tide, we recorded it in quarter inch intervals 
and by observations taken ten minutes apart. This series of ob- 
servations extended through one month. 

September 27th I made up a party to go south along the coast. 
We wanted first to establish a hunting camp where the conditions 
for sealing were more favorable than near the ship and next we 
were anxious to get in touch with the Minto Inlet Eskimos as soon 
as possible for purposes of study and to make purchases for our 
ethnological collection. The party consisted of Illun with his wife 
Kutok, Pikalu and his wife Pusimmik, Emiu, Palaiyak and myself. 

Our progress southward was slow, for the ice along the beach 
was very rough and the land so rocky that we could not sledge over 
it. Farther out in the strait the young ice was still so weak that 
travel was unsafe. We stopped now and then for seals and killed 
a number, two or three times sending loads of them back to the 
ship. Our impression was, however, that in none of these localities 
would the sealing remain good when the frost hardened, so we kept 
moving along. Eventually we established a temporary sealing 
camp just north of Deans Dundas Bay. We realized that this also 
would become a poor locality as soon as the straits froze over more 
firmly and that the permanent camp would have to be much far- 
ther south where the currents keep the offshore ice in motion. 

I might here explain any apparent inconsistency between my 
statements to the effect that I consider experienced white men bet- 
ter traveling companions than Eskimos, and that on my journeys 
I nearly always preferred Eskimo companions. The reason is that 
I am an ethnologist by profession, and even apart from that in- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 409 

tensely interested in all the information that I can continually get 
from the natives. I have never acquired perfect command of an 
Eskimo dialect, although I speak the Mackenzie River one about 
as fluently as I do English, which is my native tongue. Fluency 
does not necessarily mean idiomatic correctness, and when talking 
with members of this group I am continually discovering mistakes 
which it is well for me to correct. When there are Eskimos of 
other dialects I make notes illustrating not only the idiomatic dif- 
ferences but especially the sound changes. A simple illustration 
is that the ending "yok" in the Mackenzie River dialect becomes 
"rok" in several but not all the dialects of northern Alaska. 

A continual marvel to me is the endless variety of Eskimo 
beliefs, called by us superstitions. With the most superstitious 
persons of our own race we usually soon come to an end of the 
list. They may have beliefs about the moon controlling the 
weather, about the unluckiness of Friday and thirteen, about pick- 
ing up a pin, about the lighting of three cigarettes with one match, 
etc., but I have never known any one with whom the list of such 
beliefs would not be ended inside of a score or two. With the 
Eskimos there seems to be literally no end. Their range of infor- 
mation about the facts of nature is limited and their information 
about the non-facts correspondingly voluminous. 

Not as an exhaustive account of Eskimo beliefs but merely as 
an illustration of what one may learn in a week's journey with 
Eskimos whose confidence you have, I give a synopsis of diary en- 
tries on this subject between October 2nd and October 15th. I was 
happy that I was able to learn anything at all, for to me it is a 
deplorable result of the Christianizing of the Eskimos that most 
of those in the vicinity of the Mackenzie delta are now unwilling 
to tell any ordinary person about the more interesting of their old 
beliefs. They still hold these firmly but they hold them in secret, 
talking about them in the Eskimo language when the white men 
present are known not to understand what they are saying, and 
with me, since I am known to understand, most of them are now 
unwilling to talk at all. On this trip I was able to get the full 
confidence of Illun although his wife objected strongly to his tell- 
ing the more sacred beliefs, for they have divided them according 
to the ideas of missionary approval and disapproval into two 
classes — harmless and harmful. 

I shall give first some of the harmless ones. 

On October 2nd I learned from Illun corroborated by Kutok, 
that the reason sleeping people can see things at a distance is that 



410 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

when one dreams the eyes travel. If you remember on waking 
that you have dreamed about things at a great distance it is be- 
cause your eyes have actually been there while you were asleep. 
In this connection I asked whether the fact that we dream about 
hearing things did not imply that the ears traveled also. They 
both agreed that seemed reasonable but that they had never heard 
it so stated; privately they considered that in all probability the 
ears as well as the eyes travel. Still, that would not be the outer 
ear, for they had frequently observed that those remain while 
persons are asleep. When I pointed out that some sleepers have 
their eyes partly open with the eyeballs visible, they asserted that 
such people would not be dreaming at the time. In general they 
admitted when I cross-questioned them that their belief about the 
eyes traveling presented difficulties. For instance, you could press 
on the eyelids and assure yourself that the eyeball was under- 
neath. They said, however, that it was generally true about many 
things known to be so that there were other things which appeared 
to be contrary. Nothing which they had ever observed had 
shaken their belief that in dreams the eyes do travel. 

On October 15th I learned from Kutok that women who have 
children as often as one every other year lose their hair rapidly. 
As the beliefs of whites here correspond, it seems the Eskimos 
have here observed correctly. Kutok said Eskimos consider that 
childless women and those who have few children have better hair 
than those who have many children. It is of course a fact that 
there are few Eskimo women who have many children. Kutok's 
own mother had had more children than any other women known 
to any of my informants, and they numbered eleven. Four chil- 
dren is considered a large family among any Eskimos known to me. 

It is not unreasonable to suppose that the falling out of hair 
may have something to do with the condition of general health. 
I can say from my own experience that my general health appears 
to be much better when I am in the North than it is in civilization, 
and that the condition of the hair corresponds. My hair com- 
menced falling out when I was in college and continued until it 
had become noticeably thinner up to the point of my first going 
North when I was twenty-seven. Four or five months after I com- 
menced the journey I noticed that my hair had ceased falling out 
and it did not begin again until four or five months after I re- 
turned to New York in 1907. In 1908 I left New York in May, 
reaching the Arctic in late June, and I think it was in September 
or October that I noticed my hair had stopped falling. It did 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 411 

not fall from that time until about Christmas in 1912, three months 
after I got back to civilization but five or six months after I had 
begun to eat the ordinary mixed civilized diet and live in general 
in the ordinary civilized way. On the present expedition my hair 
stopped falling out sometime during the winter of 1913-14 and 
did not begin again until I was convalescent from typhoid at 
Herschel Island in the winter of 1917-18. So far as I can judge 
I have a better head of hair now, fifteen years after, than I had 
when I first went North in 1906. 

It seems not unlikely that the interference with circulation 
caused by a tight hatband, as is generally believed in civilization, 
has something to do with the falling out of the hair. In the North 
I never wear a hat and I cease wearing one as soon as I reach any 
place where going bareheaded does not expose one to annoying 
attention or comment. Even in the coldest weather of winter I 
frequently throw back the hood of my coat, wearing it so that 
it corresponds to a collar rather than a cap, and on very mild days 
I go entirely bareheaded, finding that the hair is sufficient pro- 
tection for everything but the ears. I never wear a cap of any 
sort underneath the Eskimo-style hood although that is the cus- 
tom in the semi-civilized portions of Alaska, such as the vicinity of 
Nome, where white men have universally adopted modified Eskimo 
clothing. 

Another explanation that suggests itself and is in line with the 
modern vitamine theories is that the high percentage of under- 
done and raw flesh foods eaten by us in the North may have some- 
thing to do with stopping the falling out of hair. I have noticed 
in my own case that tooth decay which had begun before I went 
North has advanced less rapidly up there than it does in civilization. 
This may be due to a difference in the composition of the saliva 
and the different chemical condition of the mouth through the 
absence of any decaying carbohydrates. But it has been shown 
that a diet deficient in vitamines will cause rapid tooth decay in 
guinea pigs. It seems not unreasonable even to suppose that the 
high percentage of vitamines or some similar factor in the northern 
diet may be the explanation perhaps of both the slow decay of 
teeth and the improved condition of the scalp. 

On October 15th I secured from Illun against the rather insistent 
opposition of his wife a valuable bit of the sort of secret informa- 
tion which is now carefully hidden by most Eskimos from mission- 
aries or other white men, and which in the minds of the Eskimos is 
gradually taking on the character of our old beliefs in witchcraft. 



412 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

That these things are frowned on by missionaries has gradually 
brought about the Eskimo belief that, while they are true and 
efficacious, the ancient charms are wicked. Some Eskimos seem 
to think that the mere knowledge of them is wicked and likely to 
endanger salvation. Others consider that knowing the charms is 
not wicked if you never say them. Accordingly, some Eskimos 
who have full confidence in me will tell me that they know some 
charms but are afraid to tell them to me, while others will assert 
that they know no charms. They admit that they knew them once 
but claim to have forgotten them. 

Illun's powerful charm consisted of the same word repeated 
three times and three other words each pronounced once. One 
of the words had a meaning unknown to him, a point not uncommon 
in the ancient charms which in some cases are in their entirety 
composed of words either partly intelligible or not understood at 
all by the people of the present day. This charm was to be pro- 
nounced in a low singsong that could scarcely be called a chant. 
It was to be. used only in cases of extremely difficult childbirth. 
One should wait until in his opinion the woman was about to die. 
The possessor of the charm would then go outside the house. He 
was to walk around the house once in the same direction that the 
sun moves around the horizon. The charm should then be pro- 
nounced distinctly and but once, and must be finished just before 
one reaches the door at the end of the walk. The child may be 
delivered during the middle of the chant, or in a very difficult case 
not until the last word is being pronounced. I rather inadvertently 
asked Illun whether the charm was to be repeated a second time 
if it did not work the first time. At this he was naturally of- 
fended, saying to me with dignity that he had already said that 
the child was delivered during the pronouncing of the very last 
word; consequently one need not worry about the necessity for 
repetition. He warned me that if I ever had occasion to use the 
charm I must for a time not eat any of the native fats, caribou, 
mountain sheep, polar bear, seal, marmot, and the like. He said 
that eating butter or bacon would do no harm. 

Both Kutok and Pusimmik had said when Illun began to teach 
me the charm that they did not want to possess it. By the time 
I had learned to repeat it correctly I felt quite sure that both of 
the women must have learned it also, and I asked how they were 
going to avoid the spiritual guilt of knowledge. I was now told 
that the trouble in their opinion — they admitted that other Eskimos 
might have different views — was not with the actual knowledge 





o 
o 

en 




Drying Meat and Sealskins. 




Eskimo Child Asleep in the Sun. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 413 

of these words but with the "possession" of them. Illun explained 
that he had not yet given me possession of the charm although I 
already knew it, but said that he would do so now. We then went 
outdoors and to such a distance from the house that words spoken 
in an ordinary tone could not have reached the ears of any one 
listening. Illun planted a small stick in the snow and asked me 
to stand motionless and keep my eyes fixed on the stick. He 
then went to one side mumbling some words which I could not 
catch. In a minute or so he told me that now he had transferred 
the charm to the stick and if I would go and pick up the stick 
the charm would be transferred from the stick to me. After pick- 
ing it up I was allowed to throw it away immediately, for the 
transfer had been completed. 

Afterwards Illun cautioned me very solemnly about the use 
of the charm. It must be employed only if death seemed imminent. 
Every word must be pronounced exactly right. Here I asked about 
my accent. He said that that did not matter, for my accent did 
not differ more from his than the accent of one tribe differed from 
that of another, and he knew that this charm was in use by people 
belonging to various groups. But no syllable must be omitted 
and the words must not be pronounced in incorrect sequence. 

He gave further directions that he had not previously explained. 
The woman to be benefited must be by herself in a hut that had 
been specially constructed for her. At the commencement of the 
charm you must be standing at the right side of the door from the 
point of view of the woman if she were looking out from the house. 
You must begin saying the first word as you lift your foot for the 
first step, and should finish the last word exactly as you arrive back 
at the left side of the door. He emphasized that if anything was 
done incorrectly I should suffer some serious misfortune and should 
probably die within the year. I asked if the woman or child would 
suffer through an incorrect performance, but he said they would 
not except to the extent that the charm would not help them. 

In connection with this charm Illun told me that his father had 
possessed a man-killing spell (inuksiun). He had been a man of 
very even temper and had never had occasion to use it. Illun 
himself was quick-tempered, and when his father offered to teach 
him the charm he refused on the ground that it might be too great 
a temptation sometime if he were angry >. leading him to commit 
murder. Illun further said that before he became a Christian he 
had controlled several wicked charms but had "thrown them away" 
and completely forgotten them. The one he taught me he did not 



414 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

consider wicked because its only purpose was to do good and that 
only to others. He said he had had some charms for curing him- 
self of illness, but had discarded these because they were selfish 
and he had been taught by the missionaries not to be selfish. 

On October 6th Illun gave me a bit of information that has since 
been confirmed, at least in part. He said that the inland people 
of Alaska, such as the groups Noatagmiut, Kagmallirmiut, Killir- 
miut, used to lose their teeth while still not old through their loosen- 
ing and dropping out. The coast people, he said, seldom lost teeth 
this way, but theirs were frequently worn down to the gum through 
the eating of dried fish or dried meat into which the wind had blown 
grains of sand. One of my earliest observations when I came to the 
Eskimos was that those who were not eating civilized food to any 
extent invariably had undecayed teeth, although they were some- 
times badly worn down through chewing food containing sand. 
At the end of my second expedition I brought back to the American 
Museum of Natural History one hundred and six Eskimo skulls. 
Not one tooth has so far been noticed in any of these skulls that 
shows evidence of decay (dental caries) except those where the de- 
cay followed a breaking of the tooth through accident. But in con- 
firmation of what Illun now told me and of what I have also ob- 
served, ten or fifteen per cent of these skulls give seeming evidence 
of pyorrhea, a disease v/hich frequently leads to the dropping out 
of the teeth. That pyorrhea was absent on the coast I have not 
been able to confirm and it may be that Illun's information was 
wrong on this point. 

It may seem that with a person like Illun, who in that respect 
is a typical Eskimo, it would be impossible to distinguish between 
truth and untruth where he gives you myth and miracle with as 
much confidence as the narrative of the simplest averred fact. 
But one who knows the Eskimo mode of thought has little difficulty. 
Illun has told me that when a polar bear kills a seal he takes 
hold of the skin of the seal at the mouth and, as mentioned already, 
strips it off as one may remove a stocking by turning it inside 
out. He has also told me that he never knew a polar bear to eat 
a fish or to try to catch one, and that he has known of bears 
walking to the leeward of a pile of dried meat without paying any 
attention to the smell and evidently failing to realize from the odor 
that dried meat is food. The first of these stories has no founda- 
tion whatever and the others are literally fact. The distinction 
is simple. I must admit, however, that some stories are of such 
a nature that it is not easy to discriminate between fact and folk- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 415 

lore. For instance, I was told once about a man who dropped 
his hunting knife through a hole in the ice where he was fishing 
and who pronounced a charm and then rolled up his sleeve and 
reached down and picked the knife off the bottom. When I heard 
the story I imagined that the charm had been wholly unnecessary 
and that the water simply had not been deeper than twelve or 
fifteen inches. I learned later, however, that this incident occurred 
on the ice of Dolphin and Union Straits where the water is probably 
thirty fathoms deep. In other words, what I first took for a simple 
fact would have had to be a miracle. 

This information was obtained from Illun between October 
2nd and 15th. It will give some 'idea of the* general character of 
my diaries to say that the total number of pages covering these 
days is ten and that about five are devoted to fact, myth, and mir- 
acle as told me by the various Eskimos. If all my diaries for the 
time I have spent in the Arctic were examined, I think that, ice 
journeys apart, the number of pages devoted to information se- 
cured from the Eskimos is somewhat greater than fifty per cent. 
It is the advantage of our comfortable winter camps, as I have said, 
that even in January with the temperature outside perhaps fifty 
below zero we can sit comfortably in our most casual traveling 
camps, writing down information with a fountain pen. Were we 
as uncomfortable as polar explorers have usually been we should 
have neither the inclination to listen to such yarns nor the facilities 
for recording them if we did. 

The first aurora of the year appeared on this journey on October 
8th. While auroras are commonest in midwinter they are fre- 
quently seen earlier in the season than this, and I have once seen 
an aurora in summer when the sun was just beneath the horizon 
in the north and there was daylight enough at midnight for the 
reading of ordinary print. These are beautiful and wonderful 
phenomena but so are sunsets. Both have been frequently de- 
scribed in print and the auroras have been especially dwelt on by 
nearly every polar explorer. Had I some new and plausible ex- 
planation to offer for the aurora it would be forthcoming, but for 
word pictures I refer the reader to almost any polar book in a 
circulating library. Words must always be inadequate to de- 
scribe such phenomena to those who have not seen them, but 
sketches and painting are better. I know none so good as those 
published by Anthony Fiala in the scientific results of the Fiala- 
Ziegler Expedition. 



CHAPTER XLII 



A VISIT TO THE COPPER ESKIMOS 



OCTOBER 19th we left the others behind at the temporary 
hunting camp just north of Deans Dundas Bay while Emiu, 
Palaiyak and I went farther south in search of Eskimos. 
On our way along the coast we saw frequent traces of Eskimos who 
had been there in summer, either inuksuit or wood shavings where 
they had been fashioning their implements from driftwood. There 
were no recent signs of caribou but a few bear tracks, and accord- 
ing to expectations the sealing conditions improved. The map in 
this vicinity needs correcting but on this journey we had not the 
facilities for doing it and we never thereafter had the time. It is 
possible, however, to identify from the map the conspicuous points. 
As we advanced I commonly walked along the beach sticking 
up on end any little piece of driftwood for use as fuel on later 
journeys during the winter. Some of the wood was doubtless hid- 
den by snow. What I saw amounted to less than a quarter of a 
cord per mile of beach. We found bones of whales here and there, 
in some cases bowhead bones but more often those of the ingutok. 
One of the unsettled points about whales is whether the animal 
known to the Eskimos as ingutok is a distinct animal or a young 
bowhead. The Eskimos say that the meat is different in texture 
and flavor. This I can verify though I cannot say that this dif- 
ference may not be due to age. The amount of whalebone is very 
small with the ingutok but this again might result from youthful- 
ness. Of the whaling captains I have talked with, most are of the 
opinion that it is another species of whale. They say they have 
killed bowheads of size corresponding to the ingutok and, beyond 
the proportions of the body, quite different. 

At Phayre Point we stopped October 24th for seals, but the cur- 
rent proved so strong that they would have drifted beyond our 
reach before we could secure them with the manak. Had we had 
with us a tarpaulin to convert our sledge into a boat we could 
have killed almost any number. The ice in this vicinity was still 
so thin that bays could not be crossed and we had to follow around 

416 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 417 

fairly close to the land. Off Phayre Point itself the shelf of ice 
adhering to the land was less than half a mile wide. We saw two 
caribou near the point but they took fright from the howling of 
the dogs and we should have had to devote at least half a day 
to following them. The land, too, was rocky and fetching meat 
from inland would have been hard on the sledge shoeing. 

The next day when traveling east along the south side of the 
peninsula of which Phayre Point forms the extremity we noticed 
almost simultaneously a man a mile or two ahead of us and two 
men a mile or two behind following our trail. The man ahead did 
not appear to have seen us but the others were evidently trying to 
catch up, so we stopped and waited for them. They turned out 
to be two Eskimos whom I had not previously seen but who had 
spent the summer in Banks Island and had visited Captain Bernard 
at Cape Kellett. They were able to give us some information 
from Kellett dating a little later than our departure but it amounted 
merely to saying that everything was going well. 

They told, however, a story that worried me. I have mentioned 
before in telling how our party traveled homeward across Banks 
Island in the summer that we met the Eskimo Kullak and his 
wife Neriyok, and that Kullak presented me with a pair of slip- 
pers to see to it that his wife should have easy delivery and that 
her expected child should be a boy. I was now anxious to hear 
about them but did not want to inquire for fear my doing so might 
give the impression that I was over-interested. Presently, how- 
ever, our visitors mentioned of their own accord that Kullak and his 
wife were not far behind and that the child had not yet been born. 
It became instantly clear that no child was involved but some 
form of abdominal tumor which had given the woman an appear- 
ance mistaken by the Eskimos. It seemed to me that such an 
abscess would certainly lead to death and I feared that I should 
eventually appear to the Eskimos as a murderer whenever the 
death should occur. For the time being I was anxious to keep 
out of their way for I felt sure that if I met them there would be 
additional importunities that I should do something I was power- 
less to do. 

After stopping an hour or two on the road to chat, we all 
proceeded to the village which the visitors said was only a mile 
or two ahead in a deep bight. When we came in sight of it a crowd 
of about a hundred men, women and children came out to meet 
us, practically the entire population. Among them I recognized 
several acquaintances from my short visit to these people the 



418 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

spring of 1911, but several I remembered I did not see. In- 
quiries brought out the fact that two of those with whom I had par- 
ticularly associated had died, but that most who were not now here 
in Minto Inlet were supposed to be in Prince Albert Sound. It 
seems that about a year ago the group of about two hundred and 
twenty people found by me in the Sound in 1911 had divided into 
two nearly equal sections, one remaining in the Sound and the 
other coming north into Minto Inlet and amalgamating with the 
twenty or thirty people whom in my previous books I have spoken 
of as a separate group.* I now learned that from their own point 
of view they always were the same people and that any one bears 
the name of Minto Inlet or of Prince Albert Sound according to 
which of these districts he inhabits any particular year. 

Our welcome was as warm and friendly as it could possibly be, 
and nearly that noisy. Little children jumped up so as to be able 
to touch our shoulders and men and women stroked and shook 
and handled us in every friendly way. According to their custom 
of hospitality, we were asked as to the size of house wanted and 
whether it was to be built right in the village or some distance 
outside. We chose a site about a hundred yards away and the 
house was promptly erected without our touching a hand to any- 
thing. Our dogs, however, although perfectly friendly, were so 
much larger than any the people were used to that we had to un- 
hitch them ourselves and tie them up. Even after realizing the 
friendliness of the dogs, the Eskimos seemed to stand in a good 
deal of awe of them and gave them a wide berth, rather, appar- 
ently, through respect than fear. 

This village was a single row of houses built under a cutbank, 
probably because this was the only locality where snow deep and 
hard enough for cutting into blocks could be secured. In the 
evening when it had become dark the glowing windows had a most 
cheerful appearance from without. The houses all faced the sea — 
southwest or west. The windows were set into the dome above the 
doors and were of translucent lake ice, commonly about eighteen 
inches square, and those not square had their longer diameter up 
and down. Some of the houses were single domes but others were 
constructed by building two or three domes so that they inter- 
sected and then cutting out the intervening walls. Whether the 
house consisted of one, two or three domes, there was usually but 
one entrance. This was through an alleyway, in some cases six 

*See "My Life With the Eskimo," pp. 279 ff. and "Anthropological 
Papers of the Stefansson-Anderson Expedition," pp. 29-30. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 419 

or seven feet high and varying in length from eight to twenty 
feet. The door at the outer end of the alleyway was four or five 
feet high and two and a half or three feet wide. But the door 
by which one entered from the alleyway into the house proper 
was always so low you had to go in on hands and knees, and the 
upper edge of the door was a few inches lower than the top of the 
bed platform when you came in. 

The largest of all the houses was that of my old acquaintance 
Hitkoak, the much-traveled man who had in 1899 seen Hanbury's 
party on the Arkilinik River above Baker Lake and who told me 
about it in Prince Albert Sound in May, 1911.* This was far 
the largest snowhouse I had ever seen. In its longest diameter 
the floor was thirty feet across. There were two bed platforms 
each ten or twelve feet across the front and eight feet wide. A 
sort of impromptu reception for us was held in this house. With 
the visitors, family and intimate friends sitting Japanese-fashion 
on the bed platforms, there was room for about seventy-five people 
to stand closely packed on the floor space in front. It has to be 
admitted that they were almost as closely crowded as straphangers 
in an American street car, but even at that it was a marvel to me 
that a hundred people could gather under one snowhouse roof. 

The highest point of the central dome was probably ten or 
eleven feet from the floor. The house was brilliantly lighted by 
several oil lamps each burning with a foot of flame. These were 
set low down in Eskimo fashion but their light was reflected again 
and again from the million snow crystals in the dome, so that the 
house was filled with a soft and diffused glow. 

A house as large as Hitkoak's is never purely a residence but 
is intended in part as the assemblyroom or club house of the village. 
With its high dome it is difficult to heat, for it becomes so warm near 
the roof that the snow tends to melt before it is comfortably warm 
at the level where people sit. Moreover, heating so large a house 
takes a great deal of seal oil. Families of social ambition among 
the Eskimos would perhaps not mind the mere trouble and expense 
if large houses were fashionable. This is the opposite of the fact, 
for the snowhouse dwellers of the east, no less than the dwellers 
in wooden houses whom we have already discussed, prefer coziness 

* For a photograph of Hitkoak, see "My Life With the Eskimo," opposite 
p. 284. For Hitkoak's account of his meeting with Hanbury, see the same 
book, page 285; and for Hanbury's account of his meeting with the party 
of which Hitkoak was a member, see David T. Hanbury's "Sport and Travel 
in the Northland of Canada," p. 14. 



420 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

to spaciousness and never seem entirely at home in a house that is 
larger than necessary. It is a part of their idea of proper house- 
keeping that all possessions except those in actual use at a given 
time are to be kept outdoors in some sort of depot, perhaps on a 
platform or perhaps in a house built for the purpose. People go 
out and fetch whatever is wanted and take it or the remains of 
it out as soon as the occasion for use has passed. 

The beds in Hitkoak's large house were covered with polar 
bear and reindeer skins mainly, but there were a few ovibos hides. 
Some people had told me in 1911 that ovibos were extinct from 
the part of Victoria Island inhabited by them, but I learned now 
that a single herd had been discovered two or three years before 
northeast of Prince Albert Sound and all the animals in it had 
been killed. As these people cannot count above six, I was unable 
to learn exactly how many animals there were, but I should judge 
from the number of skins around this village and from the fact that 
I was told that some of the skins were in the other division of 
the tribe, that there must have been fifteen or twenty. 

The village had been standing here only a few days. Pre- 
viously the people had been at some lakes a little distance to the 
northeast, catching fish of various sorts with hooks through the 
ice. One type was a salmon-like fish, red, and resembling the king 
salmon of Alaska. The other was a fish which when we took a 
specimen home to camp was said by Jones, who was an old salmon 
fisherman, to be very similar to the steelhead salmon of British 
Columbia. There was also a fish resembling closely, if not iden- 
tical with, the lake trout of Great Bear Lake, with fiesh slightly pink 
but with a white skin. We saw specimens of these fish running up to 
perhaps thirty pounds in weight. In Bear Lake similar fish attain 
a weight of over forty pounds. 

Near these fishing lakes a few caribou had been killed. When 
we arrived at the village they still had considerable stores of cari- 
bou meat and fat with a little dried meat. KuUak and the Banks 
Island party had been bringing home their sledges loaded with dried 
goose meat from the moulting geese which they had killed north of 
Kellett — white or snow geese. Seals were being caught through 
holes in the ice by the mauttok method, and a few bears had been 
secured. 

In the economy of these Eskimos the dog is used primarily for 
hunting and only secondarily as a draft animal. The seal holes, 
which are only an inch or so in diameter and through most of the 
winter covered with snow, cannot be found by the Eskimos without 




Copper Eskimos Spearing Fish. 




Some of the Trout Are Larger than This. 




^^^ 




Trying to Keep Cool on a Hot Arctic Day. 
Typical Copper Eskimo Dog. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 421 

the help of the sharp-scented dogs. Usually each seal hunter has 
his own dog which he takes with him in leash but sometimes two 
or three hunters will use the same dog. They will then leave the 
house together in the morning, walking back and forth over the 
ice until the dog has discovered the first seal hole. One of the 
hunters remains at this hole while the others take the dog farther 
afield. When he has found the second hole the third man takes 
him, and so on. When the sealing is not more than a mile or 
two from the village a seal that is caught early in the day is left 
lying on the ice while the dog discovers for the hunter a second 
seal hole. The hunter marks this hole temporarily, then he goes 
back to where the dead seal lies, hitches the dog to it and sends 
him home to camp. The dog does this errand with the greatest 
good will for he knows that he is going to get a feed at the end of 
it. I have asked Eskimos whether the dog was not likely to stop 
on the way to eat the seal, but it seems that this rarely or never 
happens. Before the dog starts he may try to lick the blood off 
the seal but he will not stop even for this when once on his way. 
However, if the seal is caught by a snag of ice and the dog gets 
stuck, he may turn on the seal and eat it. When a dog once 
learns to eat a seal on the way home it is difficult or impossible 
to break him of the habit and thereafter such a dog is never en- 
trusted with a seal. 

Next to the finding of seal holes the greatest use of the dog is 
in bear hunting. Commonly two or three Eskimos hunt bears 
together, although any Eskimo would be ashamed of not tackling a 
bear alone if no hunting companion happened to be available. It 
is considered that two or three dogs should be used although some 
exceptionally good bear dogs are able to hold a bear singly. The 
bow and arrow are occasionally used, especially if there are sev- 
eral hunters, but more often the bear is killed with the hunting 
knife converted into a spear, for these Eskimos have no regular 
spears. An Eskimo always uses a walking stick a little stouter 
than a broom handle and about four feet long, and when a bear is 
to be attacked he lashes his hunting knife to this stick, thus convert- 
ing it into a spear. The knife is double-edged and whether it is 
of steel or of copper the blade is usually from ten to fourteen inches 
long. 

Used as a draft animal, the dog helps the family to haul the 
sled. The largest number of dogs I have ever seen among Eskimos 
who did not have guns is three to a family. Two is the commonest 
number and one dog to a family is not rare. Perhaps the main 



422 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

reason why the introduction of firearms brings about such destruc- 
tion of caribou is that the rifle makes it so easy to provide dogs 
with food, and the mobility of the caribou herds makes it so desir- 
able to have large teams to follow the herds about, that the situation 
takes the form of an endless chain. A man has more dogs so he 
can kill more caribou to feed more dogs to help him to kill more 
caribou. The Eskimos around the Mackenzie River or Cape Bath- 
urst who used to content themselves with two or three dogs to a 
family before the introduction of firearms, had fifteen or twenty 
dogs after rifles came and while the caribou were still plentiful. 
Later, of course, when the caribou had been nearly exterminated 
in the vicinity the dog teams had to be cut down. 

It was a great disappointment to me that Pammiungittok, Hit- 
koak's father-in-law, the patriarch of the village who had seen 
Collinson in 1852, had now become decrepit and had apparently 
lost his memory. In 1911 he told me at length and most inter- 
estingly about the visit to Collinson's ship. He made it clear 
then that while he remembered being on the ship as a boy of five or 
six, the things he was telling me were not really remembered from 
that time but rather from the stories which he had absorbed as a 
boy and young man from the elder people who had been in the 
same party that visited Collinson. He told me then traditions 
of the inhabitants of Banks Island and described vividly the dis- 
covery and later plundering of McClure's ship in Mercy Bay. 
He gave me the names of distant people, such for instance as the 
Turnunirohirmiut, who lived in some island far to the northeast 
which he had never visited but of which he had heard many stories. 
At the time I entered this name in my notebook I thought that 
these would probably turn out to be a mythical people, but I dis- 
covered later that Dr. Boas when in Baffin Island in the early 80's 
learned that people of this name inhabit Prince of Wales Island. 
Thus was the the old man's general reliability established.* 

It had been one of my dreams to spend weeks with this inter- 
esting old man, recording the information which I had found by test 
to be exceptionally reliable as Eskimo stories go. This was now 
hopeless. All he seemed to remember about Collinson's ship was 
that he had been on board of it and I could not without prompting 
get from him even the same stories that he had already told me. 
I tried to question his sons, Kitirkolak and Alunak, but their infor- 
mation was very vague and much mixed with miracles and obvious 

*See ''Anthropological Papers of the Stefansson- Anderson Arctic Expe* 
dition," p. 38. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 423 

untruth, so that what their father had known in the form of stories 
of historical interest could now be obtained from his sons only in 
a form to be classed as folklore. 

One of the unfounded beliefs about primitive people, at least 
such primitive people as I know, is that their women seldom have 
trouble in childbirth. I was now told that several of the women 
whose names I had recorded on my former visit and som.e of whom 
I remembered had died in childbirth, which seemed, in fact, to 
have been the most important single cause of death during the last 
four years. 

We had some amusing experiences during the night with Emiu. 
This boy had been born either on the Diomedes or at Cape Prince 
of Wales, his parents had died when he was young, and his foster 
parents had brought him up in the vicinity of the mining camps 
around Nome. He was always a most amiable and charming 
little fellow. When at the age of fifteen or sixteen the miners dis- 
covered that he was a wonderful foot racer he became the pet and 
pride of every miner in that vicinity. For a year or two he won 
long distance races and acquired the name of '^Split-the-Wind." 
Later somebody took him out to Seattle and for two years he trav- 
eled around, sometimes as a runner and at other times as an atten- 
dant at an Alaska moving picture show. He had never lived very 
much with his own people under Eskimo conditions, and anyway 
the snowhouse is unknown in Alaska except through the accounts 
of those Eskimos who have been with whaling ships at Herschel 
Island or farther east. These have brought back the stories but 
never the skill of snowhouse-building. I have known only one 
Alaska Eskimo who before 1913 learned to build snowhouses. Nat- 
kusiak accompanied me for a year among the snowhouses of Coro- 
nation Gulf and had been for ten or more years among the snow- 
house-building people of Herschel Island and Cape Bathurst, and 
yet he had never built a snowhouse until he learned from me the 
fall of 1914 when we were caribou-hunting northeast of Kellett. 

Emiu had heard stories of people living in snowhouses, but had 
never really believed it possible that the roofs would stand unsup- 
ported by rafters or that the houses could be kept comfortably 
warm without melting. Although he told us in the evening that he 
now understood that this could be done, we found during the night 
that he still did not believe it. I had been asleep for an hour or 
so when I was awakened by Emiu lighting a candle. When I asked 
what the trouble was he said that it seemed to him the house was 
getting so warm that he was afraid the roof might melt and cave 



424 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

in. I tried to reassure him, but nothing would do but he must get 
up and examine the roof to see that it was firm and not about to 
collapse. Several times during the night either Palaiyak or I 
noticed that Emiu was awake and in the morning when we ques- 
tion him he owned up to having slept scarcely a wink. That morn- 
ing I suggested he had better climb up on the house and satisfy 
himself that it would not break down. He thought it would be 
better to pack up our cooking gear and cover up the bedding before 
he did so for fear the roof might break in. Palaiyak and I then 
climbed on the roof and were finally able to persuade Emiu to join 
us. Thereafter he was convinced of the safety of the snowhouse 
and enthusiastic about learning how to build one. But he was not 
very ingenious at it and somehow failed to grasp the principle. He 
was a persistent chap, however, and when we were traveling spent 
hours while the rest of us were within doors in building houses 
that invariably collapsed before the dome was finished. It was 
after Christmas before he succeeded in building his first real house. 

One of my main concerns was to try to get two or three families 
of these people to come and live at our ship. It was for ethnolog- 
ical purposes I wanted them — to become thoroughly familiar with 
their language and to win their confidence so that they would dis- 
cuss the more intimate things about their religion and customs. 
But I found it impossible to engage any one. 

They all gave but one reason: that they knew that in the part 
of the straits where we were wintering seals were not common, 
and that they were so used to living on seals in winter that they 
did not care to live on anything else. We suggested that we might 
be able to kill enough caribou for them to live on caribou meat. 
This they said would be agreeable to them but they had little 
faith in our being able to get enough in that vicinity, seeing that the 
only district anywhere near where caribou were at all numerous 
in winter was, in their opinion, Banks Island across the straits to 
the west of us. They were deferential about our ability as hunters, 
saying that doubtless we could kill caribou when they could not, 
but that unless we had special means for seeing them it would soon 
be so dark that with unaided eyesight caribou would be hard to 
discover. On the whole, there was not enough probability of our 
securing meat for them to make them willing to come and live 
with us. I offered wages which must have appeared fabulous to 
them. For one thing, I made it clear that we would not sell a 
rifle to any of them for any price, but that I would give one rifle 
to each family that would spend the entire winter in the vicinity 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 425 

of the ship. Although this was a great temptation, they decided 
after consultation that even a rifle would not pay for the privation. 
They believed that they could not keep their health on the sort 
of food we had at the ship and that their strength of will would 
not enable them to force themselves to eat our food even if it were 
wholesome and nourishing. 

Here I left the argument to my two Eskimo companions, who 
explained that formerly the Alaska and Mackenzie River Eskimos 
had been equally averse to white men's diet but that they had found 
by experience that white men's food was wholesome and agree- 
able and that it was no hardship to live on it. Emiu could say 
this in good faith, for he was really habituated to white men's diet. 
Palaiyak said it also in his enthusiasm to convert these distant 
cousins of his, but it was not quite true with him, for he was never 
happy unless he had a little fresh meat each day. The local Es- 
kimos remained unconverted by all these arguments, concluding 
merely that the Mackenzie Eskimos must be very different from 
themselves if they could live on white men's food. 

Of the people I was now dealing with about half had visited 
Captain Klinkenberg's ship when he wintered near Bell Island 
on southwest Victoria Island in 1905-06, and most of the same 
ones with a few in addition had visited Captain Mogg's ship, of 
which our Levi was then steward, at Walker Bay the winter 1907- 
08. Nearly all, with about twenty exceptions, had seen Natkusiak 
and me in 1911. This was the full extent of their association with 
white men except that (as mentioned above) one very old man, 
Pammiungittok, had as a boy of five or six visited Collinson in 
Walker Bay in 1852, and another had seen Hanbury in 1899 near 
Baker Lake. 

The experience upon which was based the uniform opinion that 
our diet was unsuitable for the health and well-being of Eskimos 
and that they would never learn to like it, was that of a few who 
had tasted food on board either Klinkenberg's or Mogg's ship. 
The two men who had overtaken us on the road were especially 
emphatic, having tried the food of our party at Cape Kellett the 
previous summer. They said not one item had been found that 
was agreeable. They were very polite and deferential about all 
this. They had about the same opinion of our food that the ordi- 
nary white man has of the food of the Eskimos, but their ideas 
of courtesy towards strangers would not permit them to express their 
revulsion as violently as we express similar feelings when discuss- 
ing the food and food tastes of a strange people. They were care- 



426 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ful to explain again and again that they quite understood that we 
were used to our food and that doubtless we liked it, but this was 
because we were different not only in bringing up but possibly also 
more fundamentally. 

I then tried to get as many families as possible to pay us a short 
visit. This they said they could not do at present because there 
was not enough snow for the building of snowhouses on the road, 
and they considered it too great a hardship for women and chil- 
dren to camp in tents at this season. They said, and my observa- 
tion confirmed it, that the only place they knew of where there 
was as yet enough snow for house-building was the campsite which 
they occupied. The reason why they always camped here in the 
early fall was that this was the first of all places north of Minto 
Inlet for the accumulation of snowdrifts deep and hard enough 
for house-building. The best I could do was to persuade two young 
men, Nutaittok and Taptuna, to accompany us. We agreed to 
carry for them any food which they wished to take along, and 
assured them that we had plenty of seal meat and caribou meat 
so they would not need to eat anything else during their visit, which 
was expected to last only three or four days. 

We spent only one night in the village. The next morning we 
purchased enough ethnological specimens to make a moderate load 
and in the afternoon started north. Nutaittok and Taptuna had 
at first thought they would take with them a considerable amount 
of meat, but at the moment of starting they changed their minds and 
left all behind except perhaps fifteen or twenty pounds. 

On the way north we spent a day or two at our hunting camp. 
Our new friends found this visit attractive, for all our people de- 
voted themselves to being as agreeable as possible. This was in the 
main due both to their desire to be hospitable and to my insistence 
that we must treat our guests as well as possible. But it was due 
in part also to a fear felt by our Eskimos of the local Eskimos. 
Nothing is more ingrained in the real Eskimo and nothing per- 
vades more thoroughly his traditions and folklore than the idea 
that strangers are necessarily hostile and treacherous. Every Es- 
kimo group always believes that wicked Eskimos are to be found on 
the other side of the mountains or down the coast at a distance. The 
Mackenzie River and Baillie Island Eskimos especially had many 
details of the bloodthirsty nature of the people to the east, although 
the experience of every one who during the last few years had come 
in contact with these people was that they were the most inoffensive 
and kindly lot that you could imagine. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 427 

A little way south of our hunting camp we had on the south- 
ward journey cached a whole seal and a quantity of blubber. A 
polar bear had opened this cache and had eaten all the loose blub- 
ber and about an eighth of that on the seal, not touching the meat. 
This is one of the many instances to show that polar bears, when 
they have a choice, make an entire meal of blubber. I don't think 
I have ever known them to steal meat if pure fat was available. 

On our arrival at the Bear camp October 30th we heard the 
ominous news that three of our dogs had died of one of the several 
contagious diseases that are prevalent in the Arctic. 

The diseases of the arctic dog are mysterious. The only polar 
authority I have read who claims to understand them is Sverdrup,* 
and he makes the suggestion that these diseases are always due to 
lack of care and that well-fed dogs, properly sheltered from the 
weather, never suffer from them. I have, however, seen dogs die 
under all sorts of conditions, and dogs of all ages. Some have been 
fat and others lean, some have been allowed to sleep loose outdoors, 
others have been kept in special dog barns and still others have 
been allowed to walk in and out of our houses just as house dogs 
are in civilization. No remedy ever tried by us has been of avail 
although we have tried several that have been given as infallible. 
These range from pure superstition, such as chopping off the end 
of a dog's tail or cutting his ear, to misunderstandings such as the 
idea that the disease is due to impurity of blood and that the blood 
can be purified by a large dose of sulphur. 

The only suggestion I am able to make is that we have never 
lost dogs that were living entirely on land game and that the dis- 
ease does not seem to prevail inland. We have, however, lost dogs 
in the spruce woods inland when they have been living in consider- 
able part on seal meat brought from the coast. I should suppose, 
therefore, that there is some connection between the seal and this 
disease. Certainly not all seal meat can carry this danger to dogs, 
for then all dogs in the North would die. Apparently this disease 
results from the eating of specially infected seal meat, as trichinosis 
originates from infected pork and not from uninfected. 

Neither of our visitors had ever before seen a ship, a wooden 
house, window glass, stoves, or phonographs. All these I was able 
partly to explain except the phonograph. Articles of metal, such 
as knives and cooking pots, interested them most for they not only 
understood them thoroughly but coveted them as useful in their 
hunting and housekeeping. I feel sure that had the ship been of- 
*''New Land," pp. 288 ff. 



428 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

fered to them as a present it would never have occurred to them 
to wish they knew how to operate it so that they might be able 
to use it. They would have valued it only for the pieces of iron and 
soft wood to be secured by breaking it up. As for the house, they 
were interested to see how the pieces were fastened together with 
iron nails, but they had not been with us many hours before they 
began to comment to each other on how damp it was and how skin 
clothing would spoil if kept in such a house. Our windows had the 
advantage over the pieces of glare ice to which they were used that 
you could see through them and they inquired whether they could 
not purchase from us some window glass. Still they looked upon 
this as a curiosity rather than a necessity. A year later they desired 
our rifles but as yet they had no conception of their value and were 
not greatly interested in them. The phonograph, whether it sang or 
played band music, failed to keep their interest more than a few 
moments. I invited them to note how the noise seemed to come out 
of the horn, but as soon as I stopped talking they began to say 
something to each other about the cooking pots in operation on the 
stove. 

The distinction between the phonograph and the rest of the arti- 
cles we showed them was the difference between ordinary things 
which they could understand and a miracle which, while they did 
not understand it, they accepted readily. Their own minds are not 
so filled with anything as with miracles. Those who understand 
primitive people know that to them nothing is more commonplace 
or uninteresting than a thing that appears miraculous. That is be- 
cause while miracles are decidedly the exception with us, they are 
the rule with them, for there is so little of the operations of nature 
which they understand. 

We kept pieces of caribou meat and seal meat continually boil- 
ing to make sure that our visitors could have what they wanted to 
eat whenever they wanted it, but Levi also used his full ingenuity 
in trying to devise other dishes that they might like. He tried 
canned fruits and puddings and pies, soups and sugar and candy. 
The visitors tasted politely ; some of the things they swallowed but 
most of them they asked permission to spit out again. The thing 
that they disliked least was weak tea, unflavored with milk or sugar. 
When they saw that they could drink this they took great pride in 
doing so and before they left one of them was able to drink with 
pride a full cup of tea of the ordinary strength. He then wanted 
to buy from us a little tea and a suitable teapot so that when he 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 429 

returned home he could show the rest of the village that he could 
make it and drink it. 

One of the most universal Eskimo traits is the dislike for any- 
thing very hot. During the last twenty or thirty years tea drink- 
ing has come in on the entire north coast of Canada and Alaska 
west of Cape Bathurst, and it is drunk as hot as we should drink it, 
but all the old people know that when it was first introduced it 
used to be drunk lukewarm. We found it so with our visitors. 
While they were able to drink the tea, they waited till it was so 
much cooled that most white men would have considered it unfit 
to drink. In general Eskimos eat more hot food in summer than in 
winter because cooking is then more convenient. At the Mackenzie 
River until some forty years ago no cooked food or warmed drink 
was used during the entire period of the absence of the sun. This 
extraordinary custom I had inquired about carefully. At first I 
imagined it was a taboo but all the old people have assured me that 
it was not. When white men began to come in the Eskimos felt no 
prejudice against eating warmed food and merely cared little for it 
because they were not used to it. An Eskimo is clear in distinguish- 
ing between things that are not done because they are taboo and 
others that are not done simply because they never have been done. 



CHAPTER XLIII 

TROUBLE WITH THE COPPER ESKIMOS 

THE time had come for making preparations for my projected 
journey to Cape Kellett to visit Captain Bernard and get the 
sledges he was making. I also hoped to get at Kellett news of 
Wilkins. If the Star were in Banks Island he would have visited 
Kellett before now; no news from him would mean that he had 
crossed McClure Strait to Melville or Prince Patrick Island. Ac- 
cordingly, I decided to send Captain Gonzales in my place to take 
our visitors back to their home village in Minto Inlet and to make 
further purchases there of ethnological specimens. On November 
2nd they started, Gonzales, Jim Fiji, and Pikalu to make the full 
trip, and Emiu to go as far as Illun's hunting camp to fetch home 
some bear meat. 

The evening of that day Storkerson's support party, Charley 
and Noice, returned. They reported having accompanied Storker- 
son and Herman to Hornby Point, which was the farthest reached 
by Wynniatt of McClure's expedition in his exploration of the north 
coast of Victoria Island. The trip had begun well except that the 
snow had been soft and the ice rough, making progress rather slow. 
In Prince of Wales Straits good going could generally be secured by 
leaving the land and traveling through the middle of the straits. 
But in crossing Collinson Inlet from Peel Point to Point Hornby 
much rough ice had been encountered and they were for long 
stretches compelled to build roads with miners' picks. To the north 
in Melville Sound they had seen only young ice, indicating that be- 
fore the freeze-up the sound had been, at least in its southern part, 
free from winter ice. 

It is upon the basis of similar evidence accumulated during the 
next two years that I believe Melville Sound is crossable by ordinary 
ice-going steamers of the whaler or sealer type at least two years out 
of three. In all probability the Northwest Passage can be made 
quite as easily by the route originally attempted by McClure and 
Collinson as by the one actually used by Amundsen. This route 
may have the disadvantage of a little more ice but it has the ad- 

430 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 431 

vantage of being freer from rocks and shoals and therefore better 
adapted to big ships. If the Northwest Passage is made by this 
route, a ship coming from the east through Baffin Bay and Lan- 
caster Sound has the option when it gets to Cape Providence on the 
south coast of Melville Island of crossing thence to Cape McClure 
and passing around the west side of Banks Island by the route fol- 
lowed by the Investigator in 1851, or of coming across from Cape 
Providence directly into the mouth of Prince of Wales Straits and 
passing south there and thence through the whaling waters past 
Cape Bathurst and Herschel Island. 

The support party brought me a letter from Storkerson saying 
that he expected to devote twelve days to survey work east of 
Hornby Point, returning then to headquarters. This would make 
him due home about November 22nd. November 4th Emiu returned 
with the bear meat from lUun's camp. He reported that the ice 
conditions were by now such that Illun had decided to move his 
camp south to Ramsay Island which, according to local Eskimo 
report, would be a good place for hunting bears and seals all winter. 

Emiu brought another story that disturbed me not a little. 
Before Gonzales started I cautioned him to treat well our two Es- 
kimo guests. But Gonzales had the theory not uncommon among 
whalers that "& native is a native" and that the best way to treat 
them is to make them understand from the beginning that they are 
your inferiors. The view is about the same as that commonly held in 
the southern United States with regard to the treatment of negroes. 
I know from old stories I picked up in Alaska that this method 
worked very badly when the whalers first came in to Herschel 
Island (1889). But there were as many as five hundred white men, 
South Sea Islanders, negroes, etc., in the fleet that wintered at 
Herschel Island, and as they stuck together and all treated the 
natives alike, they had the combined strength which forced their 
view upon the Eskimos, who gradually began to realize, much to 
their surprise, that instead of being superior to white men they 
were really inferior to them. My own feelings are such that I have 
never been able to treat the Eskimos otherwise than as equals. 
They treated me hospitably and well when first I came to them and 
had no resources of my own, and in the main they have continued 
to do so since although I have found exceptions among them as 
among other people. My experience has been that the less sophis- 
ticated the native the better he is to deal with. This is usually the 
experience of all travelers who deal with primitive people, except 
missionaries. For some reason missionaries generally bring back 



432 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the report that the natives among whom they work improve con- 
tinually as they become more civilized. Still there are exceptions 
even among missionaries. Some of them find the native the more 
agreeable the less sophisticated he is.* 

Certainly the only practicable method of treating Eskimos who 
meet a white man for the first time is to deal with them as equals. 
Failure to do so was, for instance, clearly the reason why the two 
Roman Catholic priests were killed by the Eskimos of Coronation 
Gulf. One of the two Eskimos said to have done the actual killing 
had, with his family, traveled about with me the summer before, 
and I found not the slightest trouble in getting along with him. 
But these missionaries had come from the Mackenzie River In- 
dians who for about a century have been used to being treated as 
social inferiors by the Hudson's Bay men and others and with whom 
the method now works well. I have been compelled to realize 
myself in dealing with the Mackenzie River Indians that the way 
to have the least trouble with them, at any rate, is never to allow 
them to feel that they are your equals. I must say also that of 
late years I am beginning to find that the north Alaska and Macken- 
zie River Eskimo is in this respect coming to be like the Indian or 
the southern negro, and some of my difficulties the last few years 
have been through my unwillingness to adopt the superior attitude 
which they have learned to expect. 

Captain Gonzales had been cautioned that these natives were 
different from the ones he was used to dealing with at Herschel 
Island and must be treated about as white men would be under the 
same circumstances. But evidently the Captain did not agree with 
this, for Emiu told me that soon after they started the Captain 
had sat down on one of the sleds to ride awhile. When the Eski- 
mos saw him do this they sat on the sleds also. This made the sleds 
rather heavy and slowed up progress, for there is considerable 
difference between one man riding and three. The Captain accord- 
ingly told them to get off, that he was the only one who was going 
to ride. But he spoke only the trade jargon which, while it serves 
for dealing with Eskimos who have once learned it as the Greenland 
or Alaska Eskimos have, is of no use with these people, who do not 
understand a word. 

Gonzales then asked Emiu and Pikalu to translate to the local 
Eskimos that they were not to ride. This they did not dare to do 
for fear the others would take offense. So they tried to induce 

*See "Ten Thousand Miles by Dog Sled," by Archdeacon Hudson Stuck, 
pp. 24-25. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 433 

them to run, not by forbidding them to ride, but by urging them 
to get off so that they could make better speed. The Eskimos did 
and ran for a while but presently sat down on the sled again, prob- 
ably not because they were tired but merely because they saw Gon- 
zales riding and it appeared to them to be the correct thing to do 
as their host did. 

Gonzales now supposed that they were doing this in direct dis- 
obedience of his wishes whereas they, as a matter of fact, knew 
nothing about them. The Captain, who did not fully realize that 
his jargon was incomprehensible, spoke to them two or three times 
but they only grinned back at him in the most friendly way. This 
he took to be insolence so he jumped off the sled and upset it, 
throwing the two men into the snow. The first time this occurred 
they took it for a joke and scrambled back on the sled again, 
whereupon the Captain tipped it over a second time and apparently 
made it clear to them by gestures that he was angry and meant 
to be obeyed. 

Pikalu and Emiu, pretty thoroughly frightened, tried to explain 
to the local Eskimos that these were the peculiar ways of white 
men and that they must not mind. The Eskimos, however, became 
moody and dropped behind on the trail. In the evening when camp 
was made they did not arrive until supper had been nearly cooked. 
Gonzales, who was hospitable and who felt sorry about what had 
happened, invited them to eat. Pikalu and Emiu again tried to 
explain the situation but, while the local men answered politely, 
it was clear that their minds were not at ease. During the night 
they talked to each other and slept little. The next morning they 
packed in their bags the things they had purchased from us at our 
camp and started off ahead. Gonzales himself was worried now 
but there was nothing that could be done. He tried to induce them 
to camp with him the following night but they refused, saying that 
they would probably go all the way home. In ordinary course this 
was about a four days' journey. Our Eskimos urged them to stop 
on the way at Illun's hunting camp, telling them that they would 
be well treated. Later when the Captain's party arrived at Illun's 
camp, it was found that they had not been there. They had evi- 
dently struck overland, making a straight course for home. 

As I have said, this story worried me, for it appeared that our 
amicable relations with these people would be at an end. Taken 
together with the probability that Kullak's wife would die, it now 
seemed that they would have at least two serious grievances 
against us. 



434 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

I should have to start on my trip to Cape Kellett before Stbr- 
kerson arrived from his surveying journey. I accordingly wrote 
telling him that with the cooperation of the entire ship's company 
of the Bear he was to prepare for the ice trip of the coming year. 
The first thing to do was to fetch the two good sledges which we 
had left at Mercy Bay. This meant an overland trip of about a 
hundred miles if the direct route were taken which might be diffi- 
cult as the journey had to be made in the darkness of midwinter 
and the unknown country might prove mountainous. By the coast 
the distance would be nearly double and it was likely that along the 
Melville Sound shore of Banks Island the ice would be rough. 

When the sledges had been brought home and repaired if neces- 
sary, a depot of sledge provisions was to be made at the northeast 
corner of Banks Island, Point John Russell. Now that we had 
plenty of pemmican and the other foods commonly used in polar 
exploration we would make use of them to take us through the 
period of limited daylight when hunting is diflScult. We expected 
them to last until we reached the vicinity of our new land which we 
thought would be in April, for the main task of the spring was 
to be the survey of land already discovered. Next year from the 
more northerly base we hoped to establish we would make journeys 
farther afield. 

In preparation for the trip to Banks Island I built an experi- 
mental snowhouse to give the men a little practice, for in this as 
in many other undertakings a good deal depends on the prompt and 
intelligent cooperation of every one engaged. The building I would 
do myself and did not expect the men to learn except gradually, but 
the cutting and carrying of the blocks, the filling of the crevices, 
the digging of the tunnel through the foundation snowdrift to pro- 
vide an entrance at a lower level than the floor, the building up in- 
side of the bed platform and covering it with skins, the setting up of 
the cooking gear and the like, all these I wanted the men to practice 
in the favorable conditions of the base where we were not tired and 
where the work could be done in daylight. On the actual journey 
the work would have to be done perhaps in half darkness, perhaps 
by moonlight, and even possibly by lantern light. 

After building two or three experimental houses, we put up on 
November 12th about as good a one as could be built. It was ten or 
eleven feet in diameter with a dome about seven feet above the 
floor. We fitted it up properly with all the camp equipment, cov- 
ering the bed platform with skins. When this was done the various 
members of the expedition visited it. The Eskimo women, who 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 435 

would not forego one of their ten daily hand-washings for the sake 
of the dry heat which would reduce the damp of the frame house, 
were nevertheless thoroughly dissatisfied with it. Now when they 
saw how clean and dry the snowhouse was they asked permission 
to move out into it daytimes to do their sewing. This was desirable 
for they could work there much better, partly because there was 
nobody moving to interfere with them but chiefly because they were 
more comfortable and had better light. Although we used no ice 
window, plenty of daylight came in through the roof, which was 
made of blocks no more than two and a half inches thick. The 
days were now short; in fact, the sun had some time before ceased 
to appear above the high land to the south. The more industrious 
women used to sew seven or eight hours a day. For them the snow- 
house was as desirable after dark as in daytime, for two or three 
candles stuck around gave more light than the several ''Rochester" 
lamps used in the main house. 

November 16th we made the start for Cape Kellett. The party 
consisted of Noice, Martin Kilian, Emiu and myself, with two 
sledges and nine dogs. We expected to meet Captain Gonzales on 
the way and get a few more dogs from him, and did so the follow- 
ing day near Deans Dundas Bay. I then had the story of the rest 
of his adventures with the Minto Inlet Eskimos, and it was even 
worse than I had feared. 

On the way down the Captain's party had spent a day or two 
with Illun at his hunting camp on Ramsay Island, and had then 
continued to the village in, Minto Inlet. The Eskimos had had 
plenty of time to hear and to brood over the story of Nutaittok 
and Taptuna. The Captain arrived in the afternoon while there 
was plenty of daylight and moved into the old snowhouse that had 
been built for our shelter. 

The people at first showed no open hostility but were merely dis- 
tant and non-communicative, and in every way different from their 
ordinary selves. Later when the Captain attempted to commence 
trading with them a crowd gathered around. An article which the}^ 
would ordinarily have examined politely and handed back with an 
inquiry of the price, they now passed one to the other until they 
got it to the outskirts of the crowd when some one would take it 
and run away with it. Presently the Captain's trade articles were 
seen to be not numerous enough to go around, and there set in a 
scramble where every one seized what he could and ran away. In 
some cases there were fights, although none serious, where several 
Eskimos struggled for the possession of a single article. In a few 



436 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

minutes the Captain's party was stripped of everything they had 
which the Eskimos valued, even down to many article^ which they 
had brought for their own use. Luckily no one of the Eskimos as 
yet coveted rifles and no attempt was therefore made to steal these. 
Nor were the dogs, harness, sleds, food or clothing interfered with, 
for none of these articles had appreciable value unless it were the 
iron shoeing of the sled. I have often wondered since why they did 
not break up the sled to get the shoeing. It may have been that no 
one thought of it, or it may have been that they thought it going 
too far. 

During this rumpus there had been no threats of violence to- 
wards the Captain or his party. His Eskimo companions, Palaiyak 
and Pikalu, were more frightened than either himself or Jim Fiji. 
The Captain thought of taking a rifle and trying to get back the 
things by threatening to shoot, but Palaiyak and Pikalu were able 
to dissuade him by saying that they would go around and talk to 
the Eskimos and try to get them to pay back by reminding them of 
their previous friendly dealings with me and also by hinting that I 
was a powerful magician who would be able to punish them with 
an epidemic or in some other miraculous way if I became angry 
with them. 

Both Pikalu and Palaiyak were later on very proud of their own 
courage and astuteness. According to their belief, their lives were 
really in great danger for, as mentioned above, that is the tradi- 
tional attitude of strange tribes toward one another. But appar- 
ently when they began to go around the village the people had 
treated them in a most friendly way, making it clear that the griev- 
ance was against the Captain and possibly against me, for they in- 
quired whether Pikalu and Palaiyak considered that I had directed 
the Captain to treat them as he had treated them. Our Eskimos re- 
minded them of how differently I had treated them, and said they 
themselves knew that I had cautioned Gonzales to treat them well. 
They explained, too, that Gonzales was acting in a way common 
among white men around Herschel Island and that the Herschel 
Island people had long ago learned not to mind it, for it was merely 
the peculiar way of white men. 

During the night the people seemed to have consulted and the 
next morning every one in the village arrived with something to pay 
for what he had taken. Some told what it was they had taken and 
paid handsomely, but others refused to name the article and merely 
asserted that what they were bringing in payment was all they 
could give. In this way the Captain eventually received nearly 





^ " 





.^^^tv^^^?vvi---- 




THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 437 

two sled loads of ethnological material, but it was not nearly so 
good as it would have been had he been able to select and bargain 
for separate articles instead of being compelled to take whatever 
they brought him. 

Before this I had been eager to persuade the Eskimos in as large 
numbers as possible to visit the ship, but it now appeared that if they 
came in large numbers they might rob us of whatever they wanted, 
as they had done with the Captain's party. It seemed that the only 
thing to do now was to let them know that no Eskimo would be al- 
lowed to come within a distance of one or two hundred yards of our 
base camp. I told the Captain that I would pass this information on 
to the natives and directed him to see to it that if Eskimos came in 
any number they should not be allowed to enter the house or come 
to close quarters with the crew. Men armed with rifles have a 
great advantage over those armed with bows and arrows and knives 
as long as there is a considerable distance between them, but at 
close quarters the knives of the Eskimos would have been as effi- 
cient weapons for them as revolvers in the hands of white men. 
Revolvers, too, were scarce with us — there were probably two or 
three altogether. 

The day after meeting the Captain's party we reached Illun's 
camp at Ramsay Island. Four or five Eskimos had accompanied 
the Captain from the village to Illun's place. They had been pleas- 
ant while they were there and had said they would come back again 
to visit Illun. The prospect of this visit was by no means pleasing 
to him, for he had the same idea that I had, that having once found 
that they could take things in a high-handed way and having, as 
they thought, a grievance against us, there was no telling how far 
they might go. 

After a day or two at Illun's place I sent Palaiyak and Emiu to 
the Eskimo village to see if half a dozen men would not come over 
and trade with us. My main purpose was to have a talk with them 
under as favorable conditions as possible, so as to smooth things 
over. I sent the explicit message that we would not deal with a 
large party, and that I wanted no more of them to come than could 
sleep in our house over-night. Palaiyak and Emiu were not very 
enthusiastic about making this trip. We took the precaution to 
have them carry nothing that would appear of great value to the 
Eskimos, the message being that if they wanted such things they 
would have to come to Ramsay Island to get them. 

The next day our messengers returned accompanied by an old 
man, Allanak, and his grandson, Kuniluk. They did not come to 



43g THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

trade but brought a few things for presents. We were in another 
sort of trouble through the ingenuity of Pikalu and Palaiyak, who 
had explained, the evening the Captain was robbed, that I had 
the power to make the whole village sick. It appeared that now 
the whole village was sick. They had been taken with an extremely 
severe cold, the severity being perhaps due to the fact that they had 
caught it from us. There was no use trying to explain to them the 
germ theory of contagion, nor any point in trying to evade full 
responsibility for the visitation. The method I took was to let my 
Eskimos explain for me that when Captain Gonzales met me he 
had told me the story of their treatment of him in a very bad 
form, making me very angry, and that it was while still angry that 
I had sent the disease upon the village. I now understood that they 
had had more provocation than I thought and that they were really 
good and friendly people and I was therefore willing to let the 
disease die off gradually without any serious consequence. The 
old man asked me again and again whether I was going to have 
any of the people die, and spent the evening in telling me all the 
extenuating things he could think of, saying how much they ad- 
mired me and how well they had liked Natkusiak and me when we 
visited them some years before. All this flattery was designed to 
get me to call off the disease. 

We treated the old man and the boy as well as we could. We 
accepted his presents and did not give him any in return, for, ac- 
cording to his view, repayment would have destroyed their efficacy. 
But we made some trades with him, giving him very favorable 
prices for certain articles that he had brought without intention of 
selling, such as part of his clothing. When I bought his coat he was 
so poorly dressed that after selling it he began to have misgivings 
about making the trip home in his under-coat even though the 
weather should be good to-morrow, but I reassured him by offering 
to lend him a coat and saying that I would send a sledge with him 
to bring it back. I bought also his two dogs. He had two others 
which he had borrowed for the occasion and these would serve to 
take his light sledge back. The next morning the weather was so 
mild that in view of the comparatively short distance the old man 
assured us that he could get home all right in his under-shirt. At 
parting I sent word by him that, while I would stop the disease 
from which they were suffering, I would nevertheless have to pun- 
ish them for their treatment of the Captain. This punishment 
would take the form of forbidding them to come in large parties to 
visit us. The largest number that we would receive were as many 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 439 

people as there are fingers on one man's two hands. Although these 
people have no words for numbers above six, it is not difficult to 
make them understand numbers up to thirty or fifty by saying, 
"as many as the fingers and toes of two men and the fingers on the 
hands of one." 

During this visit of the two men to Illun's camp I realized that 
they had a grievance against our Eskimos as well as against Cap- 
tain Gonzales. They spoke the Eskimo language with an accent 
which naturally differed from any familiar to our Eskimos who 
thought it very funny and mimicked it continually. Had they con- 
fined themselves to the mimicking our visitors might not have caught 
on, but our people thought it so funny that they could not help 
laughing while they were doing it, which made it clear to the vis- 
itors that they were objects of ridicule. Our Eskimos were illogical 
enough to be at the same time frightened of the local Eskimos and 
willing to make fun of them. At a word from me suggesting that 
if they were afraid of the Minto Inlet people they had better not 
make fun of them, they desisted and did not do it again. I now 
inferred that Nutaittok and Taptuna had had this grievance on 
their homeward journey to add to the Captain's treatment, and 
when taxed with it Palaiyak and Pikalu owned up. They had 
been in the habit of mimicking the local speech on the way down, 
but it had never before occurred to them that doing so would 
give offense. 

During the week we spent at Ramsay Island waiting for the 
passing of the new moon and the benefit of a full moon across Banks 
Island, I picked up a great deal of Eskimo lore. Most of it was of 
the ordinary kind, but one story was interesting in showing how 
white men's superstitions can be grafted on to their own. I had 
previously been familiar with the strange forms that much of the 
missionary teaching of the Christian religion takes in their minds, 
but I now had an example of the adoption of a belief which most 
of our people have long ago shed. 

I got the story from Kutok but it was confirmed by all the rest 
of our Eskimos except Palaiyak, who believed it now but had 
never heard it before. 

It was when Leffingwell was living at Flaxman Island and had 
for cook a white man named Joe. Living on the island at the same 
time was the old couple, Oyarayak and his wife Suksranna, with 
their daughter Nannegrak. According to Kutok, Joe wanted to 
marry this girl but the arrangement was opposed by Leffingwell, 
and this made Joe angry. Sometime later Nannegrak was taken 



440 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

severely ill. The local shaman, Tagluksrak, went into a trance and 
discovered that Joe had made a pen drawing on paper of a woman's 
face and had written the word "Nannegrak" across the forehead. 
He had then stabbed the picture through with some sharp instru- 
ment. Kutok thought he stabbed it through the forehead for the 
chief pain Nannegrak suffered was there. Tagluksrak saw while 
under the spirit influence Nannegrak's name written in black across 
her forehead. The shaman announced that he could not prevent 
her death for the magic was too powerful for him to combat, and 
all he could do was to explain the cause. All our Eskimos agreed 
that in the country west of Herschel Island this story was every- 
where known and everywhere believed. My Eskimos had them- 
selves told it to Duffy O'Connor, who had told them that the 
method of causing illness by making an image and then pricking or 
burning it was well known among white men to be efficacious and 
had formerly been much practiced. This was the first time I had 
heard the Eskimo explanation of Nannegrak's death. Leffingwell 
had told me about it, but I do not remember how he diagnosed the 
disease — probably as pneumonia. 

The idea of sympathetic magic may not be fundamentally un- 
known to the Eskimos except through white men's superstitions, 
but certainly this is the only story of the sort that I ever picked up. 
In view of the fact that this superstition was common in Europe 
until lately and the fact that sailors are generally superstitious, 
it would be strange if in the long association of sailors and Eskimos 
in the forecastles of whaling ships this belief had not been passed 
along. 

In a country like North America, where every landmark of con- 
sequence must have had its native name before we white foreigners 
appeared on the scene, it would seem manifestly proper that moun- 
tains, lakes and rivers should continue to be known by their im- 
memorial designations. I should be a great advocate of this were 
it not my experience that native names are so badly mispronounced 
by the earliest whites who come into any given district that few 
of them could be understood by the people whose language it is 
attempted to follow. When a stranger comes to any people he is 
sure to mis-hear their words, interpreting them into unwarranted 
likeness to the language which he speaks. A person who is not a 
trained phonetician does not hear the sound actually spoken but 
hears instead the sound out of his own language which most nearly 
approximates the strange sound. Often the approximation is so 
far from the truth that the native name written by a phonetician 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 441 

and the same name written by a trapper or trader do not resemble 
each other even remotely. To illustrate this I shall give several 
examples of Eskimo words as they sound to me after I have ac- 
quired the language and as they sounded to me when I first came 
North. 

Between Herschel Island and the Mackenzie River is a point 
which may be Escape Reef of Sir John Franklin. It is now called 
by the whites and is likely to continue being called Appawuchi 
(where the "u," as in all Eskimo words written by me, has prac- 
tically the sound of ''oo" in poor) . Now that I know and speak the 
language, this word sounds to me like Akpaviatsiak (Ak-pa-vi-at- 
si-ak) . Here some of the sounds have been changed and six sylla- 
bles have by white man's practice been contracted into four. 

There is at Herschel Island an Eskimo called by the whites 
"Cockney." At first I thought this was a nickname applied by 
one of the early whalers. When I asked the man for his native name 
he gave it to me in a way that sounded to me at the time very much 
like ''Cockney" and I realized that the white men were really at- 
tempting the approximation of the real name. But now that I am 
familiar with the language it sounds to me like Kanirk, which cer- 
tainly is not very close to ''Cockney." 

In his book, "Conquering the Arctic Ice," Mikkelsen speaks of 
the father of the girl killed by sympathetic magic as Osuruk. I 
write that man's name Oyarayak. There was in the vicinity of 
Flaxman Island an Eskimo woman married to a white man who was 
called by her husband and some of the other w^hite men Kasha 
(spelled by them Cassia). After I learned this woman's name from 
herself I asked her husband why he called her Kasha and he an- 
swered, "Because it is her name," which he later explained by saying 
that it was as near as he cared to bother to come, for in his opinion 
it was of little consequence how native names were pronounced. 
Some of the whalers differed with him in this opinion and were 
particular to call his wife Kaya. Still others called her Ikaya. I 
now write that woman's name Ikkayuak. 

Both at this time and later I tried to teach the Minto Inlet 
Eskimos to pronounce correctly my own name and the names of my 
companions. They had already decided that my name was prop- 
erly pronounced "Nappahinna" but I eventually taught them to say 
"Stepahinna," which was as near as they could get it. My own 
Mackenzie and Alaska Eskimo companions called me "Sitepasi." 
Captain Gonzales they called by an imitation of his first name, 
Henry, which was pronounced Annul. My Mackenzie River com- 



442 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

panion Palaiyak they called "Palaina;" Illun they called "Illuna;" 
Martin (Kilian) they called "Matik." None of these names were 
they able to improve through instruction except that they even- 
tually learned to pronounce Palaiyak and Illun. Their mispro- 
nunciation of Jim (Fiji) gave us endless amusement. They called 
him first "Perk" and insisted that this was the way it sounded to 
them when we pronounced it. Eventually they were able to change 
it to "Zerk" — they appeared unable to hear the "m" following the 
vowel as anything but a "k." Billy to them was "Pili" and Mac 
was "Mike." 

At the time of the Franklin search Dr. John Rae made a great 
impression on the Eskimos of Coronation Gulf. They have many 
stories which I have indubitably identified, but in all of them Rae 
appears as "Nerk." 

It is safe to say that many of our alleged Indian place names do 
not come much closer to the original than "Perk" or "Zerk" to our 
pronunciation of "Jim," which brings us back to my reason for lack 
of enthusiasm in advocating the retention of native place names. 
But what does distress me is a thing that occasionally happens 
where a native name gets correctly placed on the map and is later 
removed to make way for a mispronunciation of the same word. 
A notable instance is one of the largest Alaskan rivers which ap- 
peared correctly on the old maps as Kuvuk but appears now as 
Kobuk. This is especially deplorable as it confuses this great river 
with an even greater river nearby. The spelling Kobuk comes very 
near being the right Eskimo name for the Yukon (called by the Es- 
kimos Kopak) . 



CHAPTER XLIV 

MIDWINTER TRAVELS AND PLANS [1915-16] 

BY November 30th the moon was at the awaited stage but that 
day there was a blizzard. We started at 10:45 the next 
morning, which is early as the sunless days go in these lati- 
tudes around Christmas. When the weather is clear this season 
affords between three and four hours around noon of twilight clear 
enough for the reading of ordinary print. There was young ice on 
the straits, so we took with us, in addition to two sleds intended 
to take us to Kellett, a third sled for hauling a tent which we ex- 
pected to pitch in the middle of the straits for the first night's 
sleep. Palaiyak went along to take the tent home in the morning, 
while we counted on making Banks Island and finding a snowdrift 
for a snowhouse for the following night. I imagine that this cross- 
ing of Banks Island was a great adventure to Noice and Martin 
who were new at it, but it resembled the same crossing made by 
Natkusiak and me in 1914 closely enough so that the description 
need not be given in detail. 

Our experience the first night on Banks Island was a little spe- 
cial, however. We found a village of three or four deserted snow- 
houses which had been built by the Kullak party on their way from 
Cape Kellett to Minto Inlet. All these houses had caved in and 
were uninhabitable. Evidently the snow had been so soft that the 
roofs had begun to sag at once through the shrinking of the blocks. 
None of the houses had fallen with a crash, as indeed snowhouses 
never do that are built of soft snow, and it is probable that the 
builders were able to occupy each over-night. But by morning the 
roofs must have been pretty low and in the week or two that had 
since elapsed the roofs had sagged until the centers of the domes 
touched the floor. 

Only one house was in passable condition and even this had a 
bell-shaped depression in the roof drooping to within about two 
feet of the floor. Thinking the men might be tired I asked them 
which they preferred, to crawl into this old house or build a new 
one. I had to tell them that ours might sag in the same way but 

443 



444 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

they voted for a new building, partly doubtless because snowhouse 
building was novel enough to be fun. I searched around but was un- 
able to find any snow harder than that used by the Eskimos. In 
fact it was probably a little softer, for the blizzard of two days 
before had covered the underlying snowdrift by at least two feet of 
fresh drift. I tried to shovel this soft snow off and cut blocks from 
beneath, but both drifts were so soft that there was no clear line 
of demarcation between them. I made the mistake of building the 
house unnecessarily large. The softer the snow the easier it is to 
build if the cakes are strong enough, and the house was erected 
with remarkable speed considering the inexperience of my com- 
panions. By the time we had finished there was a stiff bliz- 
zard blowing. We cooked supper. The heat from the cooking com- 
bined with the rise of temperature outdoors due to the gale softened 
the blocks still further, and towards the end of supper when some- 
body looked up we found that the roof, v/hich had an hour before 
been a hemispherically curved vault, was now nearly flat like a 
ceiling, with the distinct appearance of a sag one side of the 
center. We hastily got together all our boxes (we carried food 
in one, cooking gear in another, and writing materials in a third) 
and made of them a pillar of support, but the roof continued sink- 
ing on both sides of the pillar with the promise that in half an 
hour or so the top box would cut a square piece out of the roof, 
allowing the rest to sink down upon us. 

There was but one thing to do. The caved-in Eskimo house 
had at least the advantage of an ice crust in its interior due to 
former heating. We had to put on our outer clothes in a hurry 
and were just able to get our gear out of the house before it be- 
came so low as to make moving about in it difficult. We now dug 
a tunnel into the old snowhouse. On interior view it appeared that 
the central depression had sunk so close to the floor that the only 
method of accommodation for us was to sleep each with his feet 
at the head of the next man in a complete circle around the house. 
We made a pillar of boxes again, afraid the roof would sink under 
the weight of snow from the outside, especially when softened by 
the heat of our bodies. Thanks to the inside ice crust our 
pillar worked very well and we passed the night tolerably, al- 
though some of the bedding got wet because of our being so 
close to the walls as to touch them. It is our great pride always 
to keep bed- clothing dry in winter, and although some of the 
bags got pretty badly wet we had them all dry long before we got 
across to Kellett and without hanging them up. They were never 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 445 

wet on the inside and the outside dried through having us warm 
inside them, the steam generated in the drying process rising to the 
roof and clinging in the form of hoar frost. 

On arrival at Kellett we found every one well and received the 
news that Wilkins had visited them. The Star had proceeded up 
the west coast of Banks Island the previous fall without any trou- 
ble till 6he was past Norway Island. There they came to ice that 
had not moved the whole season. The weather was such that 
they expected it to move, otherwise they would have stood out to 
sea twelve or fifteen miles and tried to get around it. But the 
same wind that prevented the Polar Bear from proceeding up the 
west coast of Banks Island brought drift ice that closed them in 
and destroyed the last chance of getting farther. 

The Star was now wintering safely about twenty miles north 
of Norway Island and I was well satisfied with her performance. 
She was now exactly in the place where we had wanted her to 
be last year. This year she was not quite as valuable as she 
would have been last, for our exploratory journey from that cor- 
ner to the northwest had been made already and the program of 
the year lay to the northeast. But in a country where one is 
accustomed to be thankful for small favors, I was exceedingly 
grateful to know that we had her outfit that far north. 

With our resources scattered at three such divergent points as 
Prince of Wales Straits, Cape Kellett and Cape Alfred, it was 
necessary to have a careful plan of cooperation. For that rea- 
son I asked Thomsen and Emiu to make a quick trip to the Star 
to bring Wilkins down for a conference, and occupied myself 
meantime in formulating a report to the Government, outlining 
past events and future plans. 

On New Year's day in 1916 Thomsen got back bringing Wil- 
kins and Castel, and I heard for the first time the complete story 
of what happened after Wilkins left us on the ice at Cape Alfred 
early the preceding April.* 

They had reached shore within two or three hours and had pro- 
ceeded south along the coast, being delayed through the circum- 
stance that I had been forced to give them only such dogs as 
were least adapted for our main ice- journey. These were good 
dogs but sorefooted through the crustiness of the snow that lay 
on the old ice along the Banks Island coast that winter. Boots 
had to be made for most of them, but progress was fair in spite 
of handicaps. At Kellett the spring was exceptionally early and 

♦See ante, p. 294. 



446 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

thaw water began to tun down the southward hills before they 
were able to leave, which was late in April. 

Wilkins' companions were Crawford, who was leaving the serv- 
ice of the expedition, and Natkusiak, who expected to return with 
Wilkins on the Star. In crossing the southern end of Banks Island 
they found the season less early as they went east, and for a long 
while had no trouble with the spring thaw. As reported to us 
by Kullak the previous summer, Wilkins had met a party of 
Eskimos in the straits near Minto Inlet and obtained several dogs 
which enabled him to make better progress. But he got to Dolphin 
and Union Straits only just in time to cross them safely, for the 
tide currents there eat up the ice rapidly in the spring. Fur- 
thermore, there is a sharp change in climate as one crosses from 
Victoria Island to the mainland. When I crossed those straits the 
spring of 1911 it appeared to me that the season was about a 
month farther advanced on the mainland near Point Tinney than 
on the Victoria Island coast sixty miles northeast. 

Wilkins told me that as he approached the base of the southern 
section of our expedition the first man he encountered was Johan- 
sen, our biologist, who remarked after several questions, ''Of course 
you saw no trace of Stefansson." This remark was a key to 
the attitude of the whole party towards the question of our 
being alive. 

On arrival at the base Wilkins showed Dr. Anderson his au- 
thorization from me to bring me the Star. Dr. Anderson replied 
that he would not surrender the Star and advised Wilkins to pro- 
ceed westward immediately along the coast by sled so as to get 
out, if he could, and so report to me. Wilkins asked for a written 
statement to this effect and Dr. Anderson said he would make it 
out. Wilkins understood that Dr. Anderson had a consultation 
with the members of his party and asked them for their support 
in his attitude of refusal. But the position taken by the staff 
was that they would not place themselves on definite record as 
disobeying my orders, and that it was the part of the ranking 
officer of the party to take the whole responsibility of whatever 
decision he chose to make. Thereupon Dr. Anderson told Wil- 
kins he would surrender the Star, but requested that before she 
was taken away he and certain members of the scientific staff 
should be transported by her to Bathurst Inlet. This was a most 
reasonable request to which Wilkins agreed. 

The Star is a shallow, flat-bottomed vessel built to be hauled 
out on the beach at the beginning of the winter freeze-up. For 




1 




to li 

go 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 447 

the first time in her career this had not been done and she was 
lying in the ice of Bernard Harbor. With the coming of the spring 
thaw the same thing happened to her that had happened to the 
Duchess of Bedford of the Anglo-American Polar Expedition, the 
same thing, indeed, that is bound to happen to any similarly un- 
protected wooden ship. The caulking in the seams freezes to the 
ice, and when the ice expands and contracts with changes of 
temperature the caulking is plucked out from the seams of the 
ship. Vessels intended to lie in the ice during the winter are 
protected against this action by a hardwood sheathing put on as 
much for this purpose as for strengthening the ship against its 
encounters with the ice during summer navigation. When Wil- 
kins arrived there was already much thaw water in the harbor 
and the Star had filled through her opened seams. Fortunately 
the harbor where she lay was so shallow that she did not com- 
pletely sink. Wilkins now had a . difficult and disagreeable task 
in getting her out, re-rigging and cleaning her for the summer 
work, and getting into condition the rusty, water-filled engines. 

Contrary to our experience at Cape Kellett and that of every- 
body on the mainland from Cape Bathurst west, the spring in 
Dolphin and Union Straits was exceptionally backward so far as 
ice movement was concerned, and it was late in July before the 
Star was able to get out. Wilkins then took members of the 
southern section down to the vicinity of Bathurst Inlet, returning 
as quickly as he could but too late to connect with us at Cape 
Bathurst and too late to prevent my purchasing the Polar Bear, 
a thing I should certainly not have done if I had not been con- 
vinced that the Star was going to fail us again. 

On reaching Bathurst and receiving his instructions there, Wil- 
kins discharged Crawford, who up to this point had been acting 
as engineer, and taking the work of engineer himself proceeded to 
Kellett. He would have liked to wait for me there and did linger 
for several days, but our unfortunate delays with the Polar Bear 
made the season so late that he did not dare to wait longer, and 
left the last week of August to attempt taking the Star to the 
northwest corner of Banks Island or farther if he could. It had 
been his hope to cross to Melville Island and enter Liddon Gulf 
or one of the bays just west. Had he succeeded it would have 
been a wonderful stroke, for I know of no winter base in the 
Arctic thart I should prefer to one on Liddon Gulf. But he had 
been prevented from doing this and now lay about twenty miles 
south of Cape Alfred. 



448 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

The autumn caribou-hunting at Cape Kellett had not been suc- 
cessful. Thomsen and one of the Eskimos, Alingnak, had been out 
for a week but had failed to get caribou, partly through inexperi- 
ence but mainly perhaps through unfortunate weather. Caribou 
seem to be more plentiful in the northern end of Banks Island in 
winter than in the southern end. Wilkins, now an excellent hunter, 
had gone to work energetically in the north, and with the invalu- 
able assistance of Natkusiak had secured all the caribou he con- 
sidered necessary for the winter. This done he had established 
for Natkusiak a hunting camp on the Gore Islands, an ideal loca- 
tion for seals and polar bears, and Natkusiak was there now alone. 
As happens in such places, ice conditions had sometimes been bad 
for two or three weeks when no seals were secured, but on an occa- 
sional favorable day Natkusiak would get ten or more during the 
brief three or four hours of noon twilight. He had also secured 
several bears. 

After talking things over with Wilkins I was able to decide on 
the plans for spring. I would send Thomsen, Noice and Knight 
with two dog teams back to the Bear by the route we had just 
traversed. They would pick up Illun's hunting camp at Ramsay 
Island and move everything to the Bear. Here Thomsen would 
deliver to Storkerson and Gonzales instructions outlining the spring 
work. In general Gonzales was to see that the crew of the Bear 
cooperated with Storkerson in everything he desired. Storkerson 
was to start late in January for Cape Alfred by way of the north 
end of Banks Island and I would meet him in February some- 
where on the north coast. Meantime, with the resources at Kellett 
and the Star, we would prepare everything so that early in March 
Storkerson could start with four dog teams northwest from Cape 
Alfred. This last was not wholly a desirable plan, for the journey 
of the previous spring had already been made in this direction and 
Storkerson would have to travel for some time through explored 
territory. However, we had been handicapped the previous spring 
by sorefooted dogs and a late start. With the superior outfit that 
Storkerson would now have and with a start more than a month 
earlier, he would be able to traverse the explored area in about 
ten days and should be able to do good work beyond. Such were my 
plans and ideas about that part of the exploratory work which had 
to be entrusted to others. It was the main part of the spring 
program. 

I assigned to myself the further exploration of the land discov- 
ered the previous spring (Borden Island). Several teams were to 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 449 

go from the Bear to Melville Island, making a depot for us in 
Liddon Gulf. After starting Storkerson off from Cape Alfred on 
the journey that would take our best men, dogs, and sledges, I 
would use only what equipment was left, confident that the al- 
ready known richness of game in Melville Island and on our new 
land would make it possible for me to do extensive spring and 
summer work with no matter how poor an outfit. When one is 
committed to the method of living off the country a journey of any 
length can be undertaken, and poorness of equipment will merely 
make the work a little less pleasant and slower of progress. Apart 
from serious illness of the men, death of many dogs, or absolute 
breakdown of every sled, some progress can always be made if one 
looks to the territory ahead to provide sustenance. 

In pursuance of these plans Thomsen, Knight and Noice started 
January 6th for the Bear, and two days later Wilkins, Castel and 
Martin Kilian left for the Star and Cape Alfred to prepare for 
Storkerson's arrival. I remained behind to finish my reports, since 
there appeared to be nothing pressing to do at Cape Alfred. 



CHAPTER XLV 



A NEAR TRAGEDY 



ON the 23rd I started for Cape Alfred with two sledges, sixteen 
dogs, and the Eskimos Emiu and Alingnak, his wife, Guni- 
nana, and their daughter, Ikiuna, a girl of ten or eleven. We 
traveled without adventure, sometimes camping in the snowhouses 
built by Wilkins' party, but more often failing to find them on ac- 
count of the nearly complete absence of daylight on cloudy days 
and the covering up of their trail through intervening blizzards. 

Near Bernard Island we did have an adventure. We passed the 
east end of the island the last evening of January and camped in 
one of Wilkins' snowhouses found about two miles beyond. The 
previous fall Thomsen and Knight had made a trip to Bernard 
Island and placed on the east end a depot of pemmican and kero- 
sene. This was before any one knew that the Star was only 
twenty miles to the north and at a time when I thought such a 
depot might be convenient for sledge parties traveling in winter. 
I now wanted to pick these things up and carry them to the Star, 
so we thought we would wait for daylight to locate the place 
where they were. 

The next day was beautifully clear and at noon the sun came 
almost to the horizon, so we had full daylight by which to dis- 
cover the depot with the glasses and even to discern it with bare 
eyes when once we knew where it was. Emiu was then told to 
fetch the things sometime during the day, supposedly about noon 
or soon after. 

Emiu, as we have said, had spent a large part of his life around 
Nome and had there absorbed the Alaska idea of fast dog driving. 
He took great delight in hitching a large number of frisky dogs 
to a light sled and dashing across country at twelve or fourteen 
miles per hour. This inclination we found useful and cultivated it, 
giving him the fastest and liveliest dogs and using him and them 
whenever it was necessary to send a message a comparatively short 
distance at high speed. It should not have taken him more than 

460 



<^. 



'^ 




THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 451 

an hour to go from our camp, pick up the two or three hundred 
pounds at the depot, and come home. 

I spent the day talking with the Eskimos and writing down 
folklore and linguistic notes. Guninana is one of the best Eskimo 
informants I ever had and some of the chief ethnological results 
of my former expedition were based upon her information. I 
was absorbed in what I was doing and did not go outdoors, but 
believed that Emiu was already doing 'his errand. But about two 
o'clock we had something to eat when Emiu, to my surprise, came 
in and joined us. He explained that he had been practicing snow- 
house-building all day and that he had now built a beautiful porch 
to our structure of the previous evening, inasmuch as the old house 
left us by Wilkins was not large enough for our entire party. I 
suggested that he had better make his trip to the depot right away, 
which he said he would do, remarking that it would only take a 
few minutes. 

No one in the camp knew exactly when he left but presumably 
it was about three o'clock when daylight was nearly gone. There 
was clear starlight, however, with little reason for any one to lose 
his way. When at five o'clock I went outdoors and found Emiu 
and his sled missing I was not immediately disturbed, for the 
weather was beautiful and there was starlight enough so that our 
sledge trail of the evening before on the snow could be seen by 
any one trying to follow it. But at five-thirty I placed a lighted 
lantern as a precautionary measure on top of the house. This 
beacon could be seen for at least five miles in every direction, but 
there was the trouble with it that a lantern seen on the horizon 
on a starlit night looks so much like a star that only a careful 
person will distinguish one from the other. 

By eight o'clock we were genuinely alarmed. We pictured 
what had happened. Emiu could not have failed to reach the island, 
for that was silhouetted against the fading daylight in the south- 
west. He must have found the cache, packed his load, and started 
for home. Here he would fall victim to one of the weaknesses due 
to his bringing up with white men in Alaska, who generally over- 
estimate the intelligence of dogs. Emiu had a naive belief that 
his dogs could find the way when he himself could not. Doubtless 
he had sat down on the sled, shouted to his dogs and they had dashed 
off at high speed in the general direction of home. It could not have 
taken them more than fifteen or twenty minutes to reach the neigh- 
borhood of the camp but they must have gone by without stopping, 
not realizing where it was or possibly going on through mere excess 



452 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

of high spirits, for they had had a day's rest and were frisky. 
Our snowhouse was on the bay ice with no landmarks near except 
the starlit trail. Probably Emiu had gone by the camp several miles 
before he realized that he was lost. Then he probably became so 
excited that although the lantern stood on the snowhouse all night 
and he must have seen it often, he always mistook it for a star. 

We spent much of the evening outdoors, shouting and firing off 
ammunition, noises that should have been heard for four or five 
miles in the frosty air and dead stillness. Towards midnight we 
gave up these attempts to attract his attention, except that we left 
the lantern aloft. 

Then we went to bed intending to get up about five o'clock in 
the morning to pick up his trail and follow it. But as ill luck 
would have it, a storm sprang up during the night. It began snow- 
ing at perhaps four or five o'clock and by six or seven it was blow- 
ing a stiff blizzard, with a visibility of only a hundred yards. The 
previous evening we might have picked up Emiu's trail at the 
cache and followed it by lantern light, but thought this inadvisable 
since he would probably be traveling faster than we could follow. 
Furthermore, we had only one lantern and it seemed wisest to leave 
that as a beacon at the camp. Now the wind was blowing so hard 
that it was not possible to follow the trail by lantern light, and 
with the thick clouds in the sky, the flying snow, and the sun 
barely on the horizon at noon, we could do nothing till past ten 
o'clock. Alingnak and I then went out to search. 

Alingnak went directly east from the snowhouse and I directly 
west, thinking that one of us would thus come across the trail. 
I zigzagged on my westward way so as to go over each bit of 
ground three times, but although I kept on several miles till I 
got to rough sea ice I could find no trail. When I returned to 
camp Alingnak was back. He had found the trail less than a 
hundred yards to leeward of the camp. Apparently the dogs 
must have taken Emiu right through the camp odors without giv- 
ing any warning. But as Alingnak followed towards the land to 
the northeast the trail became more and more faint, for through 
the frequent blizzards of the winter the snow towards the beach 
was very hard in many spots with almost a glass-like surface. 
In the low places everything had been filled up by the blizzard 
that was now blowing. In spite of his best efforts Alingnak could 
bring back no information except that the trail led towards the land 
and could not be followed under present conditions of light. He 
thought that with the distinct shadows of a clear day it probably 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 453 

could be followed and that we could do nothing but wait for that 
hour to come. 

That afternoon and evening we worried much over what might 
be happening to Emiu. He had been lightly clad and had with 
him no snow knife except his short hunting knife. He was not yet 
skilful in snowhouse-building, still we thought he would be able to 
erect a shelter for himself. The question was whether he might 
become so panic-stricken as not to do the sensible and obvious 
things. 

The second morning dawned clear. By now we had come to 
the conclusion that Emiu probably had done what Alingnak and 
I agreed either of us would have done under the circumstances. 
A snowhouse located on the sea ice is the most inconspicuous of 
bases and difficult to find in a blizzard. But the black bulk 
of a ship, especially with the masts pointing skyward, is one of 
the easiest things found in dark weather. On his trip with Thom- 
sen Emiu had been at- the Star and must have known that she lay 
about twenty miles to the northward. I took it for granted that 
she was on the coast of the mainland and expected that any one 
following that coast would find her. It seemed most likely to us 
that Emiu when he realized he could not find camp had proceeded 
to the Star. Accordingly, I struck out for the Star while Guninana 
and the girl maintained the camp, and Alingnak again took up the 
sledge trail. 

That day was beautiful until noon and for the first time since 
October I saw the sun just clearing the horizon at midday. I 
did not walk directly towards the Star but zigzagged about, spend- 
ing a good deal of time on ice hummocks looking around with the 
field glasses. In the early afternoon the weather suddenly changed 
into the beginning of a steady snowfall. I estimated that I was still 
some twelve or fourteen miles from the Star and now started di- 
rectly towards her, walking rapidly. But the darkness came with 
strides more rapid than mine and I was still seven or eight miles 
away from where I supposed the ship to be when it became so dark 
that even cutbanks along the coast could not be discerned at more 
than ten or fifteen yards. I advanced and the weather got even 
thicker, and eventually one could scarcely speak of visibility at 
all, except that now as in any blizzard there was hope of seeing a 
body conspicuous as to its height, for no matter how heavily the 
snow may be blowing along the ground it is only in the most 
violent gales that it flies very thick at fifty or a hundred feet 
above the surface. My expectation now was to come in sight 



454 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

any moment of the lantern which Wilkin? was to keep burning at 
the masthead every night until I should arrive. 

On the assumption that the ship was on the beach my task was 
to follow the beach. In the darkness this was not easy. The only 
certain way was to zigzag at sharp angles, going first inland till 
you were sure you were on the land and then to seaward till you 
were sure you were on the ice. As usual under such circumstances, 
I frequently had to drop on my knees and dig with my knife 
until I found whether I was on ice or land. On account of this 
same thickness of weather I made the angles by which I turned 
landward and seaward so sharp that I probably had to walk four 
miles to advance one. But this is a game which always interests 
me, and although the advance was slow I did not find it tedious. 
I felt sure that eventually I must come upon the ship. Some of 
the keenest pleasures come from mere relief from discomfort and 
from a consciousness of one's fortunate situation as compared to 
a possibility that is close at hand and easily realized. I have 
always found that the pleasure of homecoming is keener the more 
difficult it is to find the way, and I looked forward with lively an- 
ticipation to my entrance into the warm camp. I knew Wilkins 
was there and I especially looked forward to finding Emiu safe and 
sound, an eventuality of which I had almost convinced myself. 

When the weather was about as thick as possible, somewhere 
between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, I estimated that I 
was still over five miles from the ship. At the rate of one mile 
of advance for four miles of walking I must have been forging 
ahead at perhaps three-quarters of a mile per hour. This should 
have meant arrival before midnight. But midnight came and I 
had discovered nothing. I could not have missed her, so I kept 
on and on, until about five o'clock in the morning. I knew that 
by any sort of calculation I must be far beyond my destination. 

I tried to recall everything Wilkins had told me about the Star's 
exact location, but nothing came to my mind except his statement, 
remembered clearly, ''the Star is perfectly safe from ice pressure, 
hauled out in the shelter of an island which is near the mainland." 
This I had understood to mean that the ship was on the mainland 
sheltered from ice pressure by an island, but I now saw that it 
must have meant she was on the landward side of an island. Wil- 
kins had not said how far this island was from the beach, and 
there was practically no hope of finding the ship until I should have 
weather clear enough to get visibility of several hundred yards. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 455 

The sensible thing to do was to stop where I was until the weather 
cleared and find the ship on the way back. 

The best of all means for passing time is sleep. I felt neither 
sleepy nor tired, but I lay down on top of a little knoll with my 
back to the wind and tried to sleep, covering my face with my 
arm in such a way as to keep off the drifting snow. 

A belief that has in the past handicapped polar explorers is 
that when you are lost in the Arctic you must not go to sleep. 
It is said that if you do go to sleep you never wake. This belief 
seems to be a complication of several beliefs. Not only is it 
thought that you will not waken as you become colder, but it is 
actually supposed that the cold itself tends to make you sleepy. 
I used to think so myself, for it was a part of my childhood edu- 
cation. Coming home in sleighs from dances and parties I used 
to imagine that it was the bitter Dakota cold, which I feared 
through having read so much about it in magazines printed in 
New York, that was making me sleepy when I now know it was 
merely that my usual bedtime hour had passed. 

One of the commonest experiences of humanity is that when 
you are cold in bed you have difficulty in sleeping. The same 
applies whether you are sleeping on a porch "for the good of your 
health" with insufficient covers, or whether you lie down on an 
arctic snowfield in clothes that are not quite adequate to keep 
you warm when motionless. The first result of sleepiness or going 
to sleep is a slowing down of the pulse, which seems to be the 
proximate cause of general lowering of body temperature. People 
who are awakened from sleep by being too cold in bed become 
warm through mere wakefulness, providing the cold to which they 
are exposed is not too intense. That is exactly what happens to 
a person who lies down as I did now. The approach of sleep 
brings on a chill that wakes you up, so that I have never under 
such conditions been able to sleep more than a quarter of an 
hour or so at a time and more often I have not been able to go to 
sleep at all. With clothing a little warmer I could have taken 
longer naps. 

As soon as one brings common sense and experience to bear on 
a situation of this sort it becomes evident how dangerous is the 
ordinary procedure of trying to keep awake at all costs. It has 
been the cause of probably dozens of deaths that I have heard 
about in connection with the whaling fleet at Herschel Island. 
Men would get lost, and, with the obsession that going to sleep 



456 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

would necessarily be fatal, would try to keep awake indefinitely. 
Their only means of doing it was to continue walking up and 
down. Through a semi-panic brought on by the fear of freezing, 
these men have walked faster than they should, becoming grad- 
ually more fatigued and frequently perspiring violently enough to 
make their clothes wet, thus changing the clothes into "good con- 
ductors of heat" no longer of much value as protection from the 
weather. Eventually the point of exhaustion has been reached, 
when sleep has been resisted as long as possible and has conquered 
at last. It is under such circumstances that a person may go to 
sleep never to wake again. But he who lies down without panic 
as soon as he feels tired or sleepy and especially before his clothing 
gets wet with perspiration is safer and better off the more naps 
he can take. 

I spent perhaps an hour on my knoll, standing up every ten or 
fifteen minutes to shake myself and restore circulation before lying 
down again. Before daylight, flickers of aurora through the clouds 
showed that they were getting thinner and the snowfall was less- 
ening, although on the ground everything was still thick with 
drift. I started south at six o'clock. Between four and six the 
wind had shifted from northwest to northeast and had partly died 
down, but by seven o'clock it was again moderately high, blowing 
thirty-five or forty miles an hour with visibility of dark objects 
about five hundred yards. With this visibility I made good prog- 
ress, searching the mainland not so much for the ship which I 
now knew must be at an island, but for traces of people who prob- 
ably would have been ashore abreast of her and for probable sledge 
trails leading from the land towards the camp. I zigzagged about 
half a mile out on the ice without having to make the angles 
nearly so sharp as the night before, so that I was now proceeding 
perhaps a mile and a half per hour. 

At half past eleven in one of my several half-mile detours off- 
shore I picked up a sled track going south. It was not over a week 
old, so I took it to come from Natkusiak's hunting camp at Cape 
Alfred. Much to my surprise this trail did not run parallel to the 
land but presently curved and took me inland. After half a mile 
of going I came to a campsite where two or three men had ap- 
parently spent the night. I could see that the dogs had been not 
oyer five in number and had been hitched to the sled tandem. This 
told me which of our teams it was, for we were driving about half 
of the dogs in inland tandem fashion, preferable, I think, for 
heavy freighting with large dogs. The others were driven in pairs 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 457 

as they are at Nome, a better method when speed is the first object. 
The trail led from this campsite straight out to seaward. Being 
interpreted by Sherlock Holmes methods, these and other signs 
showed that the men who had camped there had done so because 
they were lost in the evening and had the following morning been 
able to see the ship or some landmark which they knew. Otherwise 
they would certainly have followed the coast instead of leaving it 
at right angles. A few minutes' walk verified this conclusion, when 
the masts of the Star appeared through the storm three or four 
hundred yards ahead. This was at half past one, and I had left 
the camp near Bernard Island about eight the previous morning, 
twenty-nine and a half hours before. 

What I am able to tell from experience about the effect on the 
inclination to hunger of the habit of absolute irregularity in meals 
should be interesting, for few have had any opportunities to make 
experiments in that field under natural conditions. I have men- 
tioned that during my second year with the Eskimos I learned the 
habit of getting up for an all-day hunt without breakfast and 
eating twice within a period of three or four hours in the evening 
after coming home from the hunt. I made then the special conclu- 
sion that that particular arrangement was suitable and involved no 
hardship. I have since frequently gone from twenty to thirty hours 
without food, walking continuously or nearly so. I have never 
arrived at the end of such a walk with an appetite keener than a 
laborer feels when his meal hour has come or perhaps has been 
passed by an hour or so. 

My welcome at the Star was warm and cheerful in every way. 
Food was brought at once but I could nob begin eating until plans 
had been arranged for continuing the search for Emiu. He had 
not arrived and his absence looked serious. Wilkins was going to 
hitch up immediately and I think went so far as to do it, but the 
weather began to thicken again and the afternoon darkness was 
upon us already, so there was nothing profitable to be done till 
morning. 

Wilkins had here the most comfortable and the most sensibly 
arranged of our three winter bases. He had never built an arctic 
camp before and had no one in his party with set views on just 
how it should be done. This left him free to follow his own devices. 

The nearest analogy to Wilkins' camp is the common winter 
dwelling of the natives of northeastern Siberia, where small tents 
are pitched within other tents half a dozen times larger. Wilkins 
had first put up a wall tent. Then at each of the four corners he 



458 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

had placed a hundred-gallon iron kerosene tank and on top of these 
some jDoxes containing something I have now forgotten, sand or 
perhaps coal. These were the corner posts. With the yards of the 
Star and some pieces of driftwood he had made a roof well above 
the roof of the tent, covered it with canvas and then with snow. 
From the front door of his tent led a long alleyway with alcoves 
on either hand and in each alcove a dog. Another alleyway ran 
to a store tent, and the whole was under one snow roof. Seen 
from the outside everything looked flat, for it was covered with 
snow and there was little indication of a human habitation be- 
yond ventilators and chimney, but inside everything was cozy. 
All the work of the camp could be done on a bad day without going 
outdoors. Without meaning that going outdoors in the Arctic 
even in a storm is hardship, still, it is an indubitable convenience 
to have everything under one roof especially as it saves a great 
many useless motions. The alleyways sloped a little upward, with 
the result that instead of the current of air being up from the dogs 
to the house, it was from the house out into the dog alley and even- 
tually up through the door at the far end. 

Early in the morning of the next day, a fine one, Wilkins and 
Martin started south to communicate with Alingnak and help in 
the search. They had gone only a few miles when they met Aling- 
nak's party and Emiu with them. His story was this: 

He had found the depot without any trouble, had loaded the 
pemmican and other things on the sled, and had started at top 
speed for the camp, expecting to be home in a few minutes and 
trusting everything to his leader dog. As Alingnak had discovered 
by the trail, the dogs had passed within a hundred yards of camp 
to leeward as the wind then was, but they had given Emiu no 
warning, passing right by. He did not realize that anything was 
wrong until he found himself in snow softer than it ought to be on 
flat sea ice. He then stopped and examined the ground, finding 
grass. At first he circled around trying to find the snowhouse; 
our lantern was in plain view but he must have taken it for a star. 
After about an hour's search he sensibly concluded to go back to 
the island and try a fresh start. He found the island and the site 
of the depot and set off again, feeling sure that this time he would 
find the house. 

Probably he was completely turned around and drove in an 
entirely wrong direction although he asserted that he even after- 
wards felt sure he took the right one. However that may be, he 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 459 

soon found himself on land again, whereupon he went back to the 
island a second time and with the same result. 

By now it was morning, cloudy, and the storm had begun. He 
stopped and waited for daylight, broke open a can of pemmican, fed 
his dogs and ate some pemmican and snow himself. When he 
knew that noon was approaching he commenced his search again 
but was unable to find either the camp or the island, for now the 
storm was very thick and he had great difficulty in making the 
dogs face it. Still keeping his head he allowed the dogs to curl 
up and sleep and tried to sleep himself on the drift beside them, 
which was a little warmer than sleeping in the sled, since it was 
nothing but a frame with a bottom eight inches above the ground, 
and the wind had a chance to circle around you instead of merely 
blowing over you. 

He confessed to finding the next night tedious and by the morn- 
ing of the third he must have been thoroughly scared, for he had ob- 
viously lost all the coolness and good sense that he had kept thus 
far, apart from the initial foolishness of trusting his dogs to find 
the way to camp. He was unable to give any clear account of 
what had happened the next morning but Alingnak told me that 
shortly after he and I parted he had climbed an ice hummock 
and seen with his glasses Emiu and his team inland traveling 
east. The weather was now clear, the reddening sky showed the 
direction of south, Bernard Island and Norway Island were in 
plain sight, both conspicuous landmarks that ought to have been 
familiar to Emiu, and even Robilliard Island to the northwest, not 
far from the Star, was in sight, and still he was traveling away 
from them, headed inland. In that direction lay no possible help; 
in fact, no human habitation before the Bear on the other side of 
Banks Island, and I know from knowing Emiu that he had no 
idea of how the Bear could be reached by going towards her over- 
land or any other way than retracing his route to Kellett and 
thence around. 

I have several times come in as close touch as this, but fortu- 
nately never closer, with the circumstances that lead to the ap- 
parently inexplicable arctic tragedies. When people are found who 
have been lost and frozen to death and when the signs show them 
to have done various inexplicable things, it is assumed that their 
minds were turned by extreme suffering and possibly the extreme 
cold. But Emiu said, and evidently truthfully, that he was never 
cold except for a moment when he awoke from his short naps, that 



460 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

he was not hungry, and that he had not suffered any discomfort 
except that of having been 'lonesome." 

Yet there he was traveling directly away in the clearest day- 
light. He even had good field glasses, and had he sat down and 
taken a careful look to seaward he could have seen our snow- 
house, or if not the house the sled and the tethered black dogs on the 
snow. Alingnak, whose lungs are not the best, had great difficulty 
in overtaking Emiu, being compelled to follow him for miles. Emiu 
stopped now and then, looked around and rested, which made it 
all the more incomprehensible that he did not recognize the plain 
landmarks on the coast. 

Apart from his trusting his dogs more than an ordinary Eskimo 
would, I do not think that Emiu's city training in Nome was at all 
responsible for his behavior. During the next day or two Aling- 
nak and Guninana told me of several similar cases they had known 
among Eskimos. As for that, I have recorded in "My Life With 
the Eskimo" various instances of Eskimos losing their way in 
clear weather. I believe that their greater liability to losing their 
way than that of white men of outdoors experience is due in part 
to their lack of mental training and in part to the fearsome super- 
stitions which lead them to become panic-stricken and confused. 



CHAPTER XLVI 

WINTER PREPARATIONS 

DURING the early part of February everybody was mainly 
engaged in making preparations for Storkerson's ice trip 
northwest from the Gore Islands. My help was not needed, 
as the number of men to be usefully employed in such work depends 
on the number of dog teams. We had proportionately more men 
than dogs, and I devoted most of my time to recording folklore and 
linguistic notes. 

The story of an expedition with as many branches as ours and 
lasting through five years is so complicated that it tends to spread 
itself over too much paper, and I am continually omitting details 
that would naturally be dealt with in the narrative of a year or 
two. These omissions I hope will lead to no serious misunder- 
standing of the main chain of events. 

Except for the light it throws upon serious events of the future, 
I would omit mentioning here that at this time I undertook to 
transfer about half a ton of sugar from the Star, which had an 
abundance, to the Bear which was on short allowance. In polar 
exploration there is seldom trouble in feeding the men who have 
to work hard. On sledge journeys hunger, the best of all sauces, 
sweetens every sort of food. All experienced explorers have found 
this so and most have been led continually to the carrying of 
fewer things, those of preeminent experience, such as Peary, even- 
tually coming to use the same things at every meal no matter how 
long the journey — in his case pemmican and hard bread with tea. 
He relates that no man ever complained of this fare after the first 
week or two and that the longer they used it the better they liked it. 
Our experience was exactly the same with a less varied and equally 
uniform diet. But this applies only to men working hard and for 
a purpose. Those at winter quarters who have nothing to do except 
prepare equipment for the work of others and keep the ship and 
camp in condition, are as difficult to please at table as clerks and 
bookkeepers at a city boarding house. 

Our people at the Bear if left to their own tastes would have 

461 



462 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

eaten from a pound and a half to a pound and three-quarters of 
sugar per week per man. But our supply called for less than a 
pound, if it was to last two years. We had a large supply of a 
preparation of saccharin known as "Saxin" and I had hoped to be 
able to use this in the sweetening of fruits, sauces and the like. 
But I found that the pure food campaign in the United States 
ten or fifteen years ago was in the minds of several who had been 
convinced by the newspaper misrepresentations of that time that 
saccharin even in the smallest quantities is seriously prejudicial 
to health. Accordingly I considered myself forced to the effort of 
transporting about a thousand pounds of sugar around the north 
end of Banks Island to the Bear. 

Preparations for Storkerson's trip were not going entirely well. 
Natkusiak had in December accumulated at his Gore Islands hunt- 
ing camp a huge quantity of meat and especially blubber, but then 
came the Christmas holidays and he had to go to the Bear to 
celebrate, not because he was lonesome but because it was Christ- 
mas. This gave half a dozen polar bears a chance to celebrate 
also and when he got back he found nearly all his accumulated 
stores either eaten or dragged away and lost. The weather was 
so dark that he had no chance to shoot the bears although he got 
a few glimpses of them prowling about. But the serious thing was 
that northwesterly winds prevailed for some time thereafter, press- 
ing the heavy ice solidly against the land floe and preventing any 
open water sealing. Natkusiak might have been able to catch seals 
by the mauttok method, but this is always tedious and there was 
no level ice where it could be practiced. In fact, western and 
northern Banks Island are about the worst places for that kind 
of sealing. It can be successfully practiced only on the flat ice 
in bays or straits or on the clear level ice fifty or a hundred miles 
from land, but not easily in the confused and broken ice near shore. 

While Natkusiak devoted himself mainly to this unsatisfactory 
sealing, most of the others occupied themselves in relaying sugar 
along the north coast. The going was bad, for the cliffs are pre- 
cipitous into deep water, giving the currents and wind a chance to 
heap the ice against the land. Road-making with pick-axes was 
frequently necessary, progress was slow, and hauling heavy loads 
difficult. But eventually we had varying quantities of sugar re- 
layed forward and deposited in hundred-pound bags at the Gore 
Islands, Mercy Bay and two intermediate points. 

These depots also contained a large store of dog feed intended 
for Storkerson's teams on his way west, and kerosene and other 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 463 

stores wanted by us on the early stages of our New Land survey. 
Having the Star so far north we planned to depend on her supplies 
for man and dog food to take us up to about the first of April. 
When you have plenty of sledges and dogs at a base well supplied 
with condensed foods such as pemmican, and fuel such as kerosene 
or alcohol, time can be saved by depending on these rather than 
hunting in the case of operations within about two hundred miles 
of the base where no delaying for scientific work on the way is 
necessary. The ideal way then is to combine the condensed food 
method with the method of living off the country. You start out 
with your sledges loaded with food, and before that you have 
made, during the darkness when real traveling is not convenient, 
depots ahead in the direction you are going. When the light is 
sufficient, perhaps in February, you start traveling steadily, never 
delaying to hunt until food and fuel are nearly or quite at an end. 
The journey can then be extended indefinitely by transferring 
from condensed food rations to game. 

By the 10th of February we began to expect Storkerson and by 
the 20th we were concerned because he had not arrived. The es- 
sential of a journey northwest from the Gore Islands was a start 
a month or six weeks earlier than ours of the previous year. Other- 
wise it would be better to concentrate all our efforts upon the 
vicinity of the newly discovered land, for mapping and other scien- 
tific work on the straits and enclosed seas between the arctic 
islands can be carried on well into the summer, whereas traveling on 
the moving ice should be finished in May and preferably in April. 

I had decided to spend the next winter in Melville Island or 
farther north whether our ships could get there or not. It has 
always been one of only two or three serious privations that with 
our system of long sledge journeys we are separated from our sup- 
ply bases much longer than ordinary explorers and are therefore 
compelled to do without books to read. On my first expedition 
I carried five books wherever I went; complete India paper edi- 
tions of Byron, Shelley, Heine's poems in German, a volume of 
Icelandic poems, and Quain's "Anatomy." On my second expedi- 
tion I had most of the standard books written about the Eski- 
mos, whether in English, Danish or German. On the present ex- 
pedition there was a thoughtfully selected and extensive library 
on both the Karluk and the Alaska, together with a general jum- 
ble of books presented to us. On each ship we had the new 
Britannica presented by its publishers, a hundred books, mainly 
scientific, presented by The Macmillan Company, and a hundred 



464 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

of more general range presented by the Frederick A. Stokes Com- 
pany. On the Karluk was also my private library gathered through 
many years, for I had expected to remain aboard ship for four or 
five months each year and was hoping to do much scientific writ- 
ing, some of it by aid of my notes of the previous expedition. 
All these books and manuscript materials were lost with the Karluk, 
and the contents of the manuscripts irreparably lost, for memory 
in most cases is so unreliable that when one's notes go the value 
of the work of months or years goes with them. I read now as new 
revelations the notes in my Eskimo diaries of ten years back, and 
continually find it valuable to check up my assertions by those 
records. 

Most of the books originally on the Alaska continued with her, 
although several were sent to me with the Star, notably a valu- 
able collection of ethnological works selected and forwarded by 
Jenness. I had now read all the books on the Star with the ex- 
ception of a few which I arranged to have carried to Melville 
Island during the spring. Some of these I carried because I knew 
I wanted to read them, others merely because they were there 
and had not yet been read. They were Hedin, "Trans-Himalaya;" 
Harrison, "Philosophy of Common Sense" and "National and So- 
cial Problems;" Hegner, "Introduction to Zoology;" IngersolFs 
"Lectures;" Comte, "Positive Philosophy;" De Morgan, "When 
Ghost Meets Ghost;" Sue, "Wandering Jew;" Hobbs, "Earth Fea- 
tures;" Mikkelsen, "Conquering the Arctic Ice;" Ellis, "Man and 
Woman;" and Boulger, "Botany." 

The books in the list above I did not carry on the sledge trip 
of 1916 except the Hobbs, Hegner and Comte. On most of my 
trips I carried some book on mathematical astronomy. Puzzling 
out problems and figuring are in themselves good for passing as 
distinguished from killing time. 

There was one book that never ceased to engage and amuse 
me. I was a small boy when Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's 
Mines" was published. I was brought up in the cowboy country, 
consequently handicapped in my power to enjoy Wild West stories, 
but I would swallow every yarn that came out of Africa. I don't 
know that I actually believed Rider Haggard's stories to be vera- 
cious histories, but I supposed them to be the sort of thing that 
easily happens in Africa, and every incident made as vivid an 
impression on me as if I had believed them to be literally true. 
It stuck in my mind for twenty years that wherever he went Sir 
Henry Curtis carried with him a copy of the Ingoldsby Legends. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 465 

I often wondered what sort of book it could be that so admirable 
a man as Sir Henry had chosen to be his constant companion. 
Somehow I managed to go through school and college without 
running into it or into any one who had, and I was beginning to 
imagine that the book did not exist any more than King Solomon's 
mines when one day I was looking around a bookstore and saw on 
the shelf the Ingoldsby Legends. I bought the volume and, like 
Sir Henry Curtis, I have carried it with me ever since. 



CHAPTER XLVII 

ESKIMO TALES FROM WINTER QUARTERS 

WHILE most of the men were engaged in various prepara- 
tions for Storkerson's expected arrival or in relaying sugar 
eastward, I spent my time recording ethnological infor- 
mation from our Eskimos. My Eskimo informants at the North 
Star were none of them over forty years old and their memories 
extended back perhaps about thirty-five years. In that entire time 
up to ten years ago they had known of three cases of insanity, and 
when they described them it appeared that only one was genuine 
insanity as understood by us. The other two were delirium accom- 
panying protracted illness that eventually led to death. But dur- 
ing the last ten years there have been ten cases of insanity among 
the Mackenzie River Eskimos. Some of these insane people were 
descendants of native Mackenzie River Eskimos, others were immi- 
grants from Alaska. The total population of the Mackenzie dis- 
trict, native and immigrant, is now less than a quarter of what it 
was twenty-five or thirty years ago. This shows the tremendous 
increase of insanity the last decade. Without resting the belief on 
anything but indirect evidence I am of the opinion that these re- 
cent cases are mostly the result of infections to which they have all 
been exposed since white men became numerous in 1889. I de- 
voted one day at the Star to writing down all the information any 
of my housemates could give me concerning these insanity cases. 

A day was devoted to inquiries into plural marriages where I 
recorded names and relationships of all persons concerned and 
available facts about their lives. I found that polygamy and 
polyandry seem to have been about equally common before the 
coming of white men and both together doubtless made up less than 
five per cent, of all marriages. 

As to consanguineous marriages I now obtained some informa- 
tion that was new to me but which I verified later. For instance, 
should a man marry a widow who is then with child this child 
will be considered to be related not to the dead father and his 
relatives but to the new husband and to his relatives. 

466 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 467 

But another idea of consanguinity entirely foreign to us is the 
one that two persons of the same name may not get married. 
With us there are but few first names that are borne by either a 
man or a woman. But with the Eskimos there is no sex differ- 
ence in names. Mamayauk is perhaps the commonest of all Mac- 
kenzie River Eskimo names and is known to me to be borne by 
seven women and three men. As most persons have several names 
not in use and are popularly known only by one, it is probable that 
there are a great many more Mamayauks than these ten. How- 
ever that be, no two Mamayauks may marry each other. Guni- 
nana's brother, who has four or five names, was married to a Point 
Hope woman. A week or two after the marriage some one dis- 
covered that among their unused names they had one in common. 
The community was greatly scandalized, and though the couple 
were very fond of each other and apparently themselves inclined 
to disregard the prohibition, they were compelled to separate and 
each, for the time being at least, lost much of the good opinion 
of the community. 

Eskimos are even less clear in their religious and social think- 
ing than we are, and it is difficult to find for their practices rea- 
sons upon which all agree. But it was the belief of my infor- 
mants, who had not philosophized about it before, that the reason 
two persons of the same name might not marry was that there 
had originally been but one stock of names. The name is with 
the Eskimos not merely a name but something like a soul, corre- 
sponding in a way to the European idea of a guardian angel.* 

On another day I devoted the whole time to inquiries regarding 
physical characteristics which were considered peculiar to certain 
individuals as distinguished from most others. None of my in- 
formants had known an Eskimo with a dimple in the chin except 
Kupak, widow of Kangaktak, who was the first insane man I saw 
among the Eskimos and who died after about three years of in- 
sanity. Kupak was the daughter of a Cape Bathurst man, Kaki- 
anna, who was said also to have had a chin dimple. Conspicuous 
Adam's-apples were unknown to my informants except on white 
men and negroes. They had never heard of an Eskimo with one 
nor does the language contain any name for it. Hair that curls 
is exceedingly rare. Kupak, of the chin dimple, had hair that 
curled slightly and my informants had known two or three others. 

At the end of my expedition of 1909-1912 a good deal of interest 

* For a discussion of the Eskimo view of the name and the soul, see "My 
Life With the Eskimo," pp. 397-402. 



468 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

was taken by newspaper readers in our report of Eskimos of Prince 
Albert Sound, Victoria Island, some of whom had light eyes and 
other European-like physical characteristics not to be expected 
among Eskimos, the pure type among whom is considered in es- 
sentials similar to that of Chinamen — brown eyes more or less 
oblique, stiff hair, high cheek bones, and the Chinese type of brown 
complexion. During these days at the Star 1 got information on 
this subject which I shall summarize here together with various 
data of the same sort secured both before and later. 

At the Baillie Islands there was one family considered to be of 
peculiar physical type by the natives and particularly by some 
white men. My attention was first called to this family by Mr. 
Christian Sten, commonly known as Christian Stein.* This was 
at Shingle Point in the fall of 1906 when Mr. Sten was living 
there in his own house and I with the Eskimo family of Memoranna, 
commonly called by the whalers ''Roxy." There were then living 
with Mr. Sten the Eskimo Tulugak with his wife, Arnaretuak, 
who was regarded by most of the white men as the handsomest of 
all the Eskimo women, doubtless because she most nearly resembled 
a white woman. She had an olive complexion lighter than many 
Italians, the type of slightly curved nose found in handsome Jewish 
women, and brown eyes not quite as brown as the Eskimo type 
and without slant or other Mongol suggestion. Her hair was only 
slightly lighter than the Eskimo black, if at all. 

Sten told me that he had known Arnaretuak's father, who 
looked more like a white man than any Eskimo he could remember. 
He did not say that he had light hair nor make any reference to any 
particular European-like feature. This man had died at Cape 
Parry the previous year, according to Sten's account. I found out 
later when I came to live at Cape Parry that the grave was not 
on the Cape proper but on the neck of the peninsula at a point 
called Akkilinak, directly across the bay north from the whaler 
harbor at Langton Bay. 

I heard nothing further about the peculiarities of this family 
until now, when we had with us on the North Star Uttaktuak, the 
wife of the Portuguese, Peter Lopez. Uttaktuak was the sister 
of Arnaretuak and the daughter of the man described to me as 
European-like by Sten. She told me that her father's mother had 
not belonged to the Cape Bathurst people but had come from 

*For references to Mr, Sten, see "My Life With the Eskimo" and also 
Roald Amundsen, 'The Northwest Passage," New York, Yol. II, p. 138 and 
elsewhere. 




It Is Holiday Five Days Out of Seven Among the Copper Eskimos. 




Tattooing — Copper Eskimos. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 469 

somewhere to the eastward, farther east than Darnley Bay, and 
that she had been said to belong to the Nagyuktogmiut. We 
learned in the year spent at Coronation Gulf that the Nagyuktog- 
miut proper are one of several groups in Coronation Gulf, as indeed 
can be seen from Richardson's narrative of his two expeditions 
in that region. But it is probable that the Mackenzie River and 
Cape Bathurst Eskimos grouped under the term Nagyuktogmiut 
not only that division but all divisions remote enough to be known 
to them only through hearsay. It may well be that Uttaktuak's 
grandmother came from Victoria Island instead of the mainland, 
and possibly even from Prince Albert Sound where the European- 
like characters are most in evidence to-day. 

According to Uttaktuak, her grandmother had eyes about the 
color of mine, which are spoken of as blue. Both Uttaktuak and 
Guinnana, who was an adopted child of Uttaktuak's parents, re- 
membered her distinctly. They also said that Uttaktuak's father, 
the man referred to by Sten, had blue eyes. Uttaktuak had two 
brothers and two sisters. One brother had blue eyes even lighter 
than mine, according to Uttaktuak. He died when four or five 
years old. The second brother had eyes also lighter than the 
Eskimo brown although scarcely blue. One of the sisters, Mamay- 
auk, has eyes which are not of the typical Eskimo appear- 
ance, as I know both from observation and from common Eskimo 
opinion including Uttaktuak's, although they cannot be described 
as blue. The darkest eyes in the family are those of Arnaretuak 
and of Uttaktuak, who is the only one typically Eskimo in appear- 
ance in the whole family.* 

My informants told me of two other people in the Mackenzie 
delta who have eyes considered by the Eskimos to be of European 
type and who are known to be of pure Eskimo descent — that is, 
not the descendants of any white men who have come to the 
country in recent times. One of these I had frequently seen and had 
never noticed any peculiarity of his eyes, taking him to be a 
typical Eskimo. I have since seen him and found that the eyes 
are indeed lighter than ordinary, but scarcely blue. 

Unfortunately the circumstances now were such that I was unable 
to spend much time with the Prince Albert Sound Eskimos. The 
winter of 1916-1917 many of them visited the Polar Bear and were 

*For an account of the "blond" Eskimos (so-called popularly although 
named by me Copper Eskimos because of the prevalence of copper imple- 
ments among them), see Index of "My Life With the Eskimo," under the 
head "Blond Eskimo." 



470 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

observed by members of the expedition. I have written reports 
on this subject from Hadley and Levi and verbal reports from 
others, recorded by myself. These reports give the names of seven 
Eskimos of various ages, from a total of about one hundred who 
have light eyes. It was the general opinion of my men, some of 
whom had associated with the Eskimos of Alaska for over twenty 
years, that there is a difference in physical appearance between 
the Prince Albert Sound group and that of the Alaska and Mac- 
kenzie River Eskimos, the difference being in the direction of simi- 
larity to Europeans. This is rather difficult to demonstrate and 
may easily be argued. Certainly there are many Prince Albert 
Sound people who are so typically Eskimo that they would pass 
unnoticed in Alaska. 

I have emphasized in various places that although there have 
been hundreds of children born during the last fifty years on the 
north coast of Alaska and around the Mackenzie River of Eskimo 
mothers and white fathers, I have heard of only two cases of half 
whites with light eyes and have seen none. Extremely light eyes 
occur among quadroons where the mother is half white, but none 
of these eyes are really blue but would be described as "greenish 
gray." A very good example are the children of Mr. Storkerson. 
Mrs. Storkerson's father is a blue-eyed Dane, Captain Charles 
Klinkenberg, and Mrs. Storkerson has eyes as brown and hair 
as black as any Eskimo but features that are in general European- 
like. Mr. Storkerson is a blue-eyed Norwegian. Their three chil- 
dren have eyes lighter than their father's or grandfather's, not blue, 
however, but a greenish gray. 

When I was at the hospital at Fort Yukon for several months in 
1918 I made extensive inquiries as to the children of mixed mar- 
riages where the father had been white and the mother either a 
full blood Athabasca Indian or a half-blood. Through the interest 
of the late Archdeacon Hudson Stuck and Dr. Grafton Burke I 
gathered much hearsay evidence on this subject. No person from 
whom I was able to inquire had seen or heard of a half- Indian half- 
white child that had eyes of any other color than brown or "dark 
hazel." Of the children that were three-quarters white and one- 
quarter Indian the majority had brown eyes, but of those that did 
not have brown eyes every one had eyes described to me as of 
the same greenish gray sort as the eyes of Mr. Storkerson's chil- 
dren. One of these children I saw myself and by good light I 
ascertained that this was the color. 

Whatever the explanation, it is certainly interesting to find that 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 471 

on Victoria Island, where no white men are known in historic times 
to have had contact with the Eskimos, there should be more in- 
stances of light eyes than on the north coast of Alaska after inti- 
mate contact for half a century between perhaps a thousand white 
men and two or three thousand Eskimos, this contact having re- 
sulted in dozens of permanent marriages where the grandchildren 
of the original mixed marriage are now growing up. No one who 
has any familiarity with the history of the North can imagine that 
these light characteristics have come in since the beginning of mod- 
ern exploration or of whaling. 

I have in fact pointed out* that the first visitor to Coronation 
Gulf, Sir John Franklin, describes the only Eskimo whom he saw as 
of European-like type, and that the second, Thomas Simpson, 
describes one of a small party whom he met as "of a distinguished 
appearance" and "much like a Scandinavian." If in 1826 Franklin 
saw a European-like Eskimo who was decrepit with age, and nine 
years later Simpson saw a middle-aged Eskimo who looked "much 
like a Scandinavian," it becomes obvious that modern European 
admixture is out of the question. As I have in previous books 
dealt rather fully with the origin of these European-like Eskimos I 
shall not go into it further here. 

*See "My Life With the Eskimo," p. 199. 



CHAPTER XLVIII 

THE NORTH COAST OF BANKS ISLAND 

BY March 2nd it was evident that something was wrong with 
Storkerson, already several weeks overdue. Were he to 
come now any exploratory effort made to the westward 
from Cape Alfred would be abortive through almost certain failure 
to penetrate materially beyond the area explored by us the pre- 
vious year. We started eastward to find out what the trouble 
was, reflecting that all our efforts that year would now have to be 
concentrated on the survey of the new land and exploration of 
the landlocked ice between the islands. 

Thus were we for the second time robbed of the benefit of the 
Star, this time through no fault of the ship's but through failure in 
preparation and operation among the scattered branches of the 
expedition. My experience through the five years has tended to 
put lower and still more low my opinion of the value of ships in 
the sort of exploration we were doing. Many explorers seem to 
have been differently led into a greater desire for more perfect 
and powerful ice ships to carry them as far as possible. Should I 
have another expedition I should be satisfied with almost any kind 
of ship, such ships, for instance, as are used by the Hudson's Bay 
Company for carrying freight to Herschel Island and these cer- 
tainly are not of any approved ice-fighting type. What I should 
want would be several young and adventurous men who would not 
be homesick and who would be willing to burn their bridges behind 
them, so far as ship support is concerned, when once they had left 
an easily accessible port like Winter Harbor on Melville Island. It 
is naturally difficult to compromise between two methods of doing a 
simple thing. The polar tradition was so strong that although I was 
free from its influence in theory, I did not in practice emancipate 
myself completely. In this I mean to shoulder directly about half 
the blame, but there was also the continued strong influence of my 
men, half of whom did not become entirely convinced of the value 
of our system until the year I am now going to describe. 

The usefulness of the Star base was gone, except in so far as 

472 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 473 

it had already contributed to our advancement towards Melville 
Island, and I arranged for its abandonment. The ship was safely 
hauled high upon the land. The remaining stores were either un- 
spoilable, or of so little value that it did not pay to leave men for 
their protection. I was planning that a hunting party should 
spend the summer in Melville Island, killing game, sun-drying the 
meat, putting the fat into bags or otherwise storing it, tanning the 
skins for future use as clothing, and doing everything to prepare 
for wintering in that island in 1916-17 by a party of between fif- 
teen and twenty men and thirty to fifty dogs. The ultimate aim 
was to have a base as far north as the 76th parallel, even should 
the Polar Bear fail to get there, for the commencement of our ex- 
ploratory work of 1917. I left the North Star March 2nd with 
Alingnak and his family. All the others had gone before except 
Lopez, who would follow in a few days. 

On the north coast of Banks Island everything was going well. 
Several seals had been killed, Castel had secured a large bear at 
the Gore Islands, Natkusiak and Emiu had killed twelve caribou 
fifteen miles east, and Wilkins twelve others ten or fifteen miles 
farther ahead. But the plan of hauling sugar to the Bear had to 
be given up, for we had counted on the teams that Storkerson 
would bring to move it from Mercy Bay to Prince of Wales Straits. 
These sugar depots were abandoned on the north coast — ^to play 
their part a year later in a tragedy undreamed beforehand and 
incomprehensible after the event. 

Such a trip as ours from Cape Alfred to Mercy Bay, across 
Melville Sound and Melville Island, and to our new land and be- 
yond, would probably make a more interesting entire volume than 
does the account of the whole expedition where the narrative has 
to take the character of a synopsis. On Banks Island itself we 
found as we advanced the novel topography of an unexplored 
country, for a glance at the map that we made and a comparison 
with the previous charts will show that there is little correspondence 
of physical features. No one appears now able to tell how the 
map of northern Banks Island found on the Admiralty charts was 
originally made up. The only explanation is that it was drawn 
largely from memory, perhaps several years after the Investigator 
passed it, possibly even after the crew reached England. 

More interesting than the topography of a country are its re- 
sources, and those of immediate interest to primitive dwellers in 
it are the vegetation and game. We found caribou, never in large 
bands but everywhere sufficient, so that had we had no food with 



474 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

us we should have fared sumptuously. Where land animals are 
plentiful one needs no other proof of vegetation, and practically- 
speaking we have no other, for we made no botanical observations 
or collections and can only say that the vegetation appeared to be 
that typical of semi-mountainous land in the Arctic. Nearly every 
second river valley showed some evidence of coal, and in certain 
ravines we found outcrops that were several feet thick and appar- 
ently of fair quality lignite, although the specimens examined were 
bleached through exposure. In other places it had much the ap- 
pearance of wood, compressed into bricks and irregular fragments 
and burned with wood smoke. 

Now I left Alingnak and Lopez with their families to follow 
behind with the poorest dogs and sledges, their sole task being to 
reach Melville Island before the break-up of the ice. There seemed 
no hurry, for caribou and ovibos are at their poorest in early sum- 
mer and we were not looking forward to as good sealing as they 
found. The accounts of the British explorers had given us little 
idea of the comparative abundance of seals, probably for the reason 
already suggested, that they did not understand the methods of 
hunting them or the signs by which their presence is revealed. My 
own party — ^Wilkins, Natkusiak and Emiu — ^traveled slowly east 
along the coast. Castel and Martin had gone ahead to Mercy Bay 
with the hope of a possible contact with Storkerson. We thought of 
illness, of accident, and of nearly every explanation except the cor- 
rect one. 

In writing for Castel his instructions for the advance trip I had 
before me the Admiralty chart. McClure's ship had wintered two 
seasons at Mercy Bay, so I felt certain that this vicinity at least 
would be well mapped. With the greatest confidence I wrote that 
after rounding Cape McClure, Mercy Bay would be the second 
great bay encountered. Castel had with him a map from which 
he expected to recognize the bay without difficulty. 

By March 22nd my party had rounded what we called Cape 
McClure, although it did not at all resemble the map, and had dis- 
covered for ourselves that the great bay charted just east of the 
cape is non-existent, unless you take a bay no more than a mile 
deep to represent one charted as twenty miles deep, with the bot- 
tom dotted in to indicate that it might be even deeper. When 
Castel met us on that day we were prepared for his report, which 
was that, failing to discover the expected first bay east of Cape 
McClure, he had traveled about as far as Mercy Bay should be 
from the Cape and had there found a bay three or four miles wide 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 475 

and ten or more miles deep. He traveled into this bay, following 
the west side of it according to directions, but failed to find the 
McClure monument and other remains of the Investigator. Ten 
miles in he discovered that it had the character of the mouth of a 
considerable river, filled with mud flats and low islands. This 
together with the absence of all traces of people convinced him 
that he was not in Mercy Bay. Nevertheless, he turned back, 
making a depot at the bay's mouth. He had already found the 
coast so different from what was indicated by the Admiralty chart 
that he thought it better to return for orders. He was also short of 
dog feed. There had appeared a band of six or eight caribou but 
he and Martin, being inexperienced, were unable to get them. 

As the New Land survey could later be carried indefinitely into 
the summer we took plenty of time to explore the different Banks 
Island valleys for whatever we could learn. We incidentally killed 
many caribou and lived sumptuously, also feeding the dogs so 
well as to keep them in excellent condition. We were somewhat 
delayed by exceptionally bad ice conditions. There was much 
snow and a road had to be made occasionally with pick-axes. 

At this time of year cow caribou in places where I have been 
on the mainland of North America would be entirely devoid of 
fat, but here they still had some back fat. We did not now kill 
any bulls but at other times they have been fatter in Banks Island 
than caribou are at corresponding seasons three or four hundred 
miles farther south. This emphasizes a consideration that should 
be obvious but is frequently overlooked, and sometimes the oppo- 
site is assumed. The reindeer is an arctic animal as truly as the 
giraffe is a tropical one. Either animal flourishes best in the en- 
vironment to which it is particularly adapted. A fish does not 
prosper on land nor a cow in the water; a giraffe would probably 
find difficulty in maintaining himself in the temperate zone, and so 
apparently do northern caribou. At any rate, it has been our 
experience that in general caribou are fatter and appear to find 
conditions more congenial the farther north they go. This does 
not mean that they are more numerous to the square mile in the 
islands than they are on the mainland. That would be impossible 
because of the rocky character of the islands. Then, too, wolves 
become so numerous in the arctic archipelago that caribou are 
nearly exterminated from certain islands. In this respect there 
are no doubt years of ebb and flow in the caribou population. 
When the caribou become too few the wolves must move out or 
die of hunger, for there are no other animals in these regions from 



476 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

which a wolf might hope to make a living. There are a few ptar- 
migan and hares, but neither of these would go far to support a 
number of wolves. Now and then wolves would in certain islands 
kill a sick ovibos that had been separated from the herd, and occa- 
sionally a newborn calf when the mother was not watching. We 
have even seen a seal killed by a- wolf. But all these sources of 
food put together would never sustain a permanent wolf popula- 
tion. When the wolves die from hunger the surviving caribou in 
turn have a chance to become more numerous, flourishing tempo- 
rarily among surroundings congenial to them until a second influx 
of wolves brings their number down again. 

I have not space to go into all the evidence upon which these 
conclusions are based, but will mention that we found a striking 
difference between our New Land at the time of discovery, when 
caribou traces were more numerous than we have seen them almost 
anywhere in the Arctic, and that same land in the fall of 1916 
when the wolves appeared to be as numerous as the caribou and 
the caribou not one-tenth as numerous as a year and a half before. 
In May, 1916, a period intermediate between the plenty of 1915 
and the scarcity of the autumn of 1916, we found an intermediate 
condition as to the number of caribou. This one example would 
not prove the hypothesis of ebb and flow in caribou population, 
but it is one of the bits of evidence upon which that theory has 
been adopted. 

At Castel Bay, which I named after its discoverer, we found 
game especially abundant, with caribou tracks everywhere and bear 
tracks on the beach. We hunted inland one day to verify what I 
felt certain of, that this was the mouth of the great river which our 
party had been unable to ford on leaving Mercy Bay the previous 
summer and which we had been compelled to follow inland some 
sixty miles. We had seen from Mercy Bay the open water caused 
by the entrance of this river into the sea, so we had in that sense 
really discovered the river mouth in 1915. Although not as wide 
as Mercy Bay, Castel Bay is a conspicuous landmark that can be 
seen from the hills of Melville Island. It has the general appear- 
ance of a fjord with high land on both sides and conspicuous cliffs 
at either side of its mouth. 

When we found that Mercy Bay was no more than six miles 
from Castel Bay it became the more astounding that the second 
bay should not have previously been on the maps. Surely some one 
from the Investigator must nearly every fine day have walked to 
the top of the land to the west of winter quarters where he could 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 477 

have had a view of Castel Bay and the river valley running 
inland. 

At Mercy Bay in a letter awaiting me from Storkerson I learned 
the reason of his not coming to Cape Alfred. First Captain Gon- 
zales had attempted to cross overland from the Polar Bear directly 
to Mercy Bay and had failed. Then Storkerson tried to make the 
same overland trip with a party of which Captain Gonzales was a 
member. It was now about midwinter, very dark and stormy, 
and the country proved mountainous. The Captain had been many 
years a whaler in the Arctic and had methods and ideas of travel 
which made him very uncomfortable, and he gave the narrative of 
this expedition much the sound of a typical polar venture of thirty 
or forty years ago. Tents had to be used, for snowhouses were 
assumed to be inferior, several food courses had to be cooked at 
each meal, and the cooking took far into the night, using up much 
of what should have been sleeping time. Hoar frost gathered on 
everything, the men's clothing got wet, and finally Captain Gonzales 
froze his feet. They had almost reached Mercy Bay when Stork- 
erson was compelled to put the Captain in a sleeping bag and haul 
him all the way back to the Bear. Here endeth the second lesson! 

The third attempt to get the sledges from Mercy Bay was suc- 
cessful. This time Storkerson followed the coast around. In sev- 
eral places and especially near Rodd Head they had great diffi- 
culty and were in some danger. Contrary to anybody's expectation 
the sea was open there even around Christmas time and they were 
compelled to travel on such dangerous young ice that they had 
many narrow escapes from falling into the water. 

When Storkerson got home with the sleds he found the instruc- 
tions that had been brought over by Thomsen. By this time re- 
peated trips in the worst time of year had made many of the dogs 
sore-footed; others of them had died from the contagious dog 
disease which had already appeared some days before I left the 
Bear. Storkerson now sent Herman Kilian and Palaiyak with a 
message to leave for me at Mercy Bay, saying that conditions in 
the east were such that it would not be feasible to make the western 
trip unless I gave up entirely the New Land survey, and that he 
would assume that I preferred the New Land survey and would 
go ahead with it. Had Herman continued to the Star it would 
have saved us a great deal of worry and also accelerated our move- 
ments. But especially it would have saved their own party the 
hard overland trip back to the Bear for which they had not been 
properly outfitted. 



478 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

From Storkerson's letter, with details filled in later, we learned 
about his survey last fall of the northeast coast of Victoria Island. 
A few days after his support party returned he made camp near 
a conspicuous headland. The next morning when he left camp he 
met a terrific head gale a few miles away, and his camp was so 
near he decided to return to it. The next day he tried again and 
met the same gale. Storkerson is an experienced man and the 
weather must have been exceptional, for he made several other 
starts and on each occasion turned back on meeting the head wind. 
This must have been a local phenomenon and the probability is 
that they could have worked through it. There are similar places 
known to me on the mainland. At Langton Bay, for instance, 
there is some years a local gale blowing steadily off the plateau 
to the south with the force of a hurricane. This storm is similar 
to a waterfall. The plateau inland is covered with heavy cold air, 
the sea in front of it is free from ice or covered with thin ice 
only, with consequent strong ascending currents of warm air. The 
cold air from the plateau flows over the escarpment to fill the space 
left by the ascending warm air. When you come from inland trav- 
eling north towards the coast of Franklin Bay, you notice a light 
breeze blowing at your back when you are six or eight miles from 
the edge of the plateau. By the time you come to the edge about 
three or four miles from the ocean and begin to descend, there is a 
terrific gale blowing that lifts pebbles and makes slivers of slate 
go like cartwheels over the snow, which is not snow in appearance 
but has been hardened and polished by the wind until it resembles 
ice. This gale may be blowing sixty or eighty miles an hour on 
the beach, but if you proceed north along the neck of the Parry 
Peninsula eight or ten miles from the cliffs you gradually walk out 
of it and find yourself perhaps in calm weather or in a light wind 
blowing in another direction. 

In Storkerson's camp now the daylight had become so faint 
and conditions so unfavorable that he decided to return to the 
Polar Bear, leaving the rest of the work to be done another time. 
He conjectured that he had been able to finish about half of the 
space intervening between Wynniatt's farthest on the west and 
Hansen's farthest to the southeast, and he had discovered a lofty 
range of mountains running east and west inland. Storkerson has 
had the naming of all capes, islands and other features discovered 
on his survey of Victoria Island both at this time and when he 
continued it later. But to this range I gave the name Shaler 
Mountains, in memory of an unexcelled teacher and charming gen- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 479 

tleman, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Dean of the Lawrence Scien- 
tific School of Harvard University, whose lectures on geology first 
opened to me some of its most interesting problems and had more 
to do than any single cause in turning my mind into geographic 
channels. 



I had intended to proceed to the Bear, but I gathered from the 
tenor of Storkerson's letter, although it did not contain the actual 
statement, that he and his assistants would by now be up in Mel- 
ville Island. So we crossed from Mercy Bay to Cape Ross where, 
sure enough, we came upon his trail and later found one of his 
camps. Here we killed a polar bear which had been prowling 
around for a day or two, eating the entrails of killed bears and 
other scraps he found lying about. The bear had touched neither 
a depot of pemmican and other provisions which Storkerson had 
protected by a heap of rocks in a ravine, nor the ovibos meat which 
had been sunk into a sort of well made with pick-axes into the top 
of an old ice hummock. 

This meat depot was an ingenious one, and while no such depot 
is probably safe against a polar bear, came as near to safety as 
well could be. The well had been made two or three times as deep 
as was necessary to hold the meat, and on top of the meat had 
been filled with ice boulders which even a bear would have had 
difficulty in lifting up and rolling away. We were able to remove 
them only by cracking each one into several pieces before handling. 

There has been among arctic explorers much speculation as to 
whether polar bear liver is poisonous. I have made many experi- 
ments to determine this and one of the most interesting ones was 
made here. 

The belief in the poisonous nature of polar bear liver was 
probably picked up by early explorers as information from the 
Eskimos. Many whalers have told me that bear liver is poison- 
ous but all of them have had it on hearsay from the Eskimos. 
When I first inquired from the Eskimos I gathered also that they 
meant to say it was poisonous. That was the interpretation I 
placed upon statements that it must not be eaten and that who- 
ever eats it would become ill. When after years with the Eskimos 
I finally got reasonable command of their religious ideas and cere- 
monial language, I discovered that what they meant to say was that 
bear liver is taboo and that some misfortune, perhaps taking the 
form of illness or death, will come upon the eater of it as a pun- 



480 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ishment, somewhat as mediaeval Christians might have expected ill- 
ness or death to follow the profane use of the sacrament. 

Asked as to the sort of results that would follow, they said that 
sometimes the man himself would die and sometimes some of his 
relatives would die within the year, but that usually the result 
was whitening of the skin — leucodermia, a disease common among 
Eskimos and also among the negroes of Africa and found, I believe, 
in all races. I remember particularly an old man three-quarters 
of whose skin had turned white. I was told by several persons, 
including his adopted son, that the old man had eaten bear liver 
when he was young. I asked the old man himself and he denied 
ever having eaten bear liver knowingly but said that he might 
have done so inadvertently. 

As soon as I realized that the Eskimo idea of the danger of 
eating bear liver was of the taboo nature I began to experiment 
upon every opportunity. I never found an Eskimo who had ever 
tried the eating of liver, but I did get some stories of liver having 
been given to dogs which had later become sick, eventually losing 
their hair. The belief is that the livers of all kinds of bears are 
equally dangerous. During my second expedition I ate nearly 
every liver of thirteen grizzly bears I killed myself and of some 
others. Once I induced an Eskimo, Mamayauk, the wife of Ilavi- 
nirk, to eat two or three slices of fried liver, but the other Eskimos 
would not even eat meat that had been cooked in the same vessel. 

On the present expedition my first experiment was near the 
northwest corner of Banks Island in the spring of 1915 when And- 
reasen, Crawford, Natkusiak and I were in camp. We had been 
short of food and had just picked up the depot of caribou fat made 
by Storkerson, Ole and me the summer of 1914 and buried in a 
stone-lined pit inland east from Bernard Island at the time when 
we gave up waiting for the Star and started south, the journey that 
resulted in the finding of the Sachs. It had been a mild and rainy 
fall and the caribou fat in the pit became damp and molded before 
the freeze-up. Certain kinds of molds are said to be poisonous. 
In our liver-eating experiment we fried the liver in this moldy 
caribou fat. I pointed cut to the men that if we were to become 
ill the mold would be quite as reasonable a cause as the bear liver. 
We all agreed that the bear liver tasted even better than the seal 
liver, although the latter is considered by white men to be as good 
as calves' liver and is indeed the one part of the seal that is com- 
monly eaten by arctic whalers. At this meal we ate a huge quan- 
tity of fat, so that this alone might have made us ill. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 481 

Some six or eight hours after the meal Crawford awoke with a 
violent headache in his forehead and eyes and soon suffered nausea, 
the vomiting continuing with about half-hour intervals for several 
hours. Ole was not ill and ate a moderate breakfast, but he began 
to feel headache soon after and before noon had become almost as 
ill as Crawford. Crawford's recovery was not quite as much 
earlier than Ole's as the onset had been, but both were nearly well 
by evening although they did not have good appetites. They de- 
scribed the headache as being the worst either of them had ever 
suffered. Natkusiak and I were not ill at all. 

Just about the same time, but unknown to us, Thomsen and 
Storkerson made an experiment on bear liver. They have reported 
that after a supper of fried liver they both awoke sometime before 
their ordinary breakfast time with the most violent headache either 
of them had ever had. Vomiting continued all day and they were 
so sick that even the next day they felt weak and were with diffi- 
culty able to travel. They said that there was nothing wrong with 
the fat in which they fried the liver and nothing uncommon about 
the other food ; in fact, there was nothing except the bear liver that 
could be considered a possible cause of the illness. 

With these and similar experiments in the background, although 
none had led to illness except the ones I have mentioned, we took 
the' liver of the bear killed when we landed at Cape Ross and 
made one more experiment. We divided it evenly. It occurred 
to me only later that there might have been an infection of some 
sort in a particular lobe of the liver without its covering th'e whole 
liver, and we should have eaten a slice from every part. This -not 
being thought of, we were not in a position to say later whether 
one of us might have eaten from one part and another from an- 
other. The only difference we knew was that some of us pre- 
ferred the liver well done and others preferred it a little underdone. 
It happened that those who preferred it underdone were the ones 
that became ill, but this may have been a coincidence. 

We had the meal about ten P. M. and soon after that we went 
to sleep. At about four in the morning Emiu was seized with 
nausea which continued at half-hour intervals until noon, and he 
had a violent headache. Wilkins had a slight headache but said 
that he had had a similar headache for the two preceding days 
and believed it to be connected with a slight attack of snowblind- 
ness. He thought that if anything his xieadache was milder than 
yesterday. Castel had a slight frontal headache, not in the fore- 
head and eyes as Emiu, but merely in the forehead back 



482 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

of the eyes. He had a normal appetite for breakfast and 
did not notice his headache until after breakfast and thought 
it might have been caused by the fumes of burning bacon when 
the cook left a pan unwatched on the primus stove while he went 
outdoors. At breakfast time Martin had a slight headache, but 
said that he had a similar headache the two previous days and 
that it had been no worse until the bacon fumes made it worse. 
But during the forenoon it gradually increased and at noon he be- 
came nauseated. The worst of his illness came about five o'clock. 
By eight Emiu had been for several hours free from nausea and was 
getting better when Martin was at his worst. The next morning 
Emiu considered himself fully recovered but Martin still had a 
slight headache and little appetite. Natkusiak had a slight head- 
ache that day but he frequently had such headaches. His appe- 
tite was normal and he had no inclination to nausea or any other 
unusual symptoms. My own appetite was not good, but I referred 
that to th'e fact that I had eaten four large meals of boiled ovibos 
meat the day before. I had a very slight headache which came 
on after the bacon fumes had filled the house and which appeared 
to me to be due to that cause. 

Summing up our experience with bear liver, I should say that 
fully three-quarters of the livers ever eaten by me or others when 
I have been present have had no bad effect In fact, the percentage 
is larger, for I have now told of all the experiments which resulted 
in the marked illness of any one. The conclusion appears to be 
that certain polar bear livers are slightly poisonous while others 
are not. It is possible that thoroughness of cooking has a pro- 
tective effect, although we are not sure of it. This was the last 
occasion when I was able to get any member of my party to make 
experiments with me. I myself have since eaten portions of six 
or eight livers with no ill effects. That I have not eaten liver 
more often is due partly to the fact that I like meat better and 
that I have tried the liver only for experimental purposes. A con- 
tributing reason for the fewness of these experiments hereafter was 
that on this occasion we lost two good traveling days in waiting 
for Emiu and Martin to recover, and time was now too valuable 
to risk losing much of it. 

Storkerson had left no more than a mere note saying that he 
was proceeding with his party to the head of Liddon Gulf. On 
the third day after our arrival I had made up my mind to go to 
the Bear with a fast dog team to see what the situation was and to 
arrange with Captain Gonzales for the cooperation of the Bear 



\ 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 483 

during the summer. But just then a sled arrived from the north 
with Herman Kilian and Pikalu. Herman reported that Storker- 
son and Thomsen, Noice, Anderson, Illun, two sleds and nineteen 
dogs were now probably at the head of Hecla Bay on the way to the 
New Land. Herman was able to give further information, so that 
I was able to formulate written instructions for Gonzales and save 
the trip to the Bear. 

Herman also brought sad news. This was the story of the first 
death on the northern section of the expedition since the Karluk 
tragedy. John Jones had been engaged by me from the Gladiator 
to be the second engineer of the Bear. At that stage we had no 
means of ascertaining the physical condition of the men except by 
their appearance and by what they told us. Jones looked the picture 
of health and seemed well qualified for his work except that he was 
a little too stout. He said that he hadn't had a sick day in years 
and that he wanted a chance to work off his superfluous weight. 

Herman told me now that Jones had confided in some members 
of the crew that he had had heart disease for years and had been 
warned by a doctor that he might die suddenly. During the early 
part of the winter it became talk aboard ship, from what the men 
observed or from what Jones told them, that he could not sleep ex- 
cept on one side. If he turned upon his other side he would awaken 
in pain and apparently in fright. Late in December he complained 
for a day or two of not feeling well and would lie down in bed 
but always got up soon after to pace the floor. One evening before 
any one went to bed he had just lain down in his bunk when he 
gave a scream and started struggling out. Two of the men rushed 
to him, but he was dead when they got there. This is the version 
told me by Kilian at the time, although I have heard slightly dif- 
ferent versions since. Jones was buried on a little hill near the 
winter quarters of the Polar Bear. 

This was sad news to me even though it lacked the keenness 
of the personal sorrow I might have felt had I known Jones better. 
We had been together casually on the ship only a few days. 
He was evidently a faithful and energetic man and was well liked 
by those who knew him best in the Bear party. He came to us 
from the fishing waters of British Columbia where he had been 
engineer of the Gladiator before she was purchased by Captain 
Wolki. We have since been unable to get much information about 
him or to find any of his relatives, for the few papers he left gave 
no clew of value in that respect. We were not even sure that his 
name was John, for he signed it always "J. Jones." 



484 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

A piece of news told by Herman that might have been of mo- 
ment concerned Hadley. He had undertaken, among other things, 
the work of keeping the meteorological records, and he used to go 
out at eight o'clock in the morning with a lantern to read the wind 
gauge that was posted on the top of a neighboring hill. Hadley's 
favorite dog was Hans. Hans and Hadley were the only survivors 
of the Karluk in the northern section of our expedition. It was 
the way of Hans every morning to meet Hadley at the front door 
and go with him to the observatory at the top of the hill. He was 
the only dog allowed to be loose, the rest being in a barn where 
each had its own stall. This morning, which was dark with clouds 
as well as through absence of daylight, there was no Hans to meet 
Hadley at the door. This gave Hadley so much concern that in- 
stead of going to the observatory he began looking for the dog, 
calling him by name as he started to walk around the house to 
see if he might be lying in the lee of it. He had taken only a 
few steps when he almost walked into a polar bear that had risen 
on its hind legs to meet him. 

I got the story later from Hadley himself, who told me that 
without any thought of which he was conscious he swung the lan- 
tern and hit the bear on the nose, shattering the glass, putting out 
the light and probably spattering the bear with kerosene. Then he 
turned and ran for the house without knowing how the bear re- 
ceived a surprise which was probably as great to him as it was to 
Hadley. Hadley should have gone in quietly either to get his rifle 
or to remain till the bear had a chance to get away. But instead he 
did the impulsive thing, shouting out that there was a bear outside 
the door, whereupon everybody scrambled for some sort of weapon 
and rushed out after the bear. 

Hadley got out first, saw the bear momentarily conspicuous as 
he was going down over a cutLank towards the beach, and fired as 
he disappeared a shot that seems to have broken the bear's shoul- 
der. When he got to the top of the cutbank the bear was down 
on the ice and Hadley fired again but without hitting. He realized 
that the bear was wounded and ran after him, firing occasionally 
although he could scarcely make out his position. After five or 
six shots he found his rifle empty, then exchanged rifles with Levi 
who was running next behind him, asking whether Levi's rifle was 
loaded and receiving an affirmative answer. Just then the bear 
ceased fleeing and turned to charge his pursuers. Thinking that 
he would be able to place a shot effectively, Hadley waited calmly 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 485 

with the rifle cocked till the animal was three or four yards away. 
His mouth was open and Hadley stuck the rifle almost into it as he 
pulled the trigger. But there was no report. The rifle had been 
empty. 

There was time only to turn the rifle crosswise as the bear 
came down upon him. The animal's mouth closed upon the stock 
of the rifle and the canines went through Hadley 's hand and nearly 
through the rifle stock, when the bear surprisingly merely gave 
one shake that tumbled Hadley in a heap on the ground, let go 
and started off again. He was followed and killed by the Captain 
and two or three others, while Hadley went back to the house to 
dress his hand. The wound looked bad at first and it Wc*.s thought 
that bones were broken but this did not prove to be the case. The 
hand had apparently been grasping the small of the stock. On 
one side the lower canine went between two fingers and on the 
other between the phalanges, piercing the flesh without breaking 
the bone. The wound eventually healed with a scarcely perceptible 
scar. 

Herman told me also that Storkerson had been trying to make 
use of our pemmican both for man and dog food and had found 
the same trouble with it that had been so serious for the Karluk 
party. We had two varieties of pemmican, designated as "man" 
and "dog" pemmican. The man pemmican contained some raisins 
and probably some cereal with lean meat and a little fat, and 
was not bad food if one had something else with it. But the dog 
pemmican seemed to be practically nothing but lean meat and salt. 
It was so salty that when two pounds of it were mixed with two 
pounds of hard bread and two pounds of unseasoned ovibos meat, 
the mixture cooked was as salty as any of our sailors could stand, 
and sailors are proverbially fond of salt. There was so little fat in 
it, too, that when four pounds of pemmican were boiled in a pot 
ten inches in diameter the fat that came to the surface was not 
sufficient to make a film over the water but merely scattered 
globules. If the dogs were fed on pemmican alone, getting a pound 
a day (the "standard ration" of Peary), they showed all the symp- 
toms of starvation and were in addition difficult to drive because 
excessive thirst caused them to lag in the harness while picking up 
mouthfuls of snow. If more than a pound was fed the dogs be- 
came violently ill. They had been able to use the pemmican for 
the dogs only by feeding a little of it with fresh ovibos or caribou 



486 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

meat, supplying the necessary fat with seal blubber.* A pound of 
pemmican is enough for a small dog if it contains fifty per cent. fat. 
Our pemmican makers had failed us through supplying a product 
deficient in fat. 

♦See "Four Years in the White North," by Donald B. MacMillan, p. 73. 



CHAPTER XLIX 

WILKINS LEAVES THE EXPEDITION [1916] 

WHEN he joined us Wilkins had done so as an employee of 
the Gaumont Company of Great Britain, to become 
photographer of the expedition, for we had made an ar- 
rangement by which the company undertook all our photographic 
work except that which any other member might want to do himself 
by preference. The sumptuous outfit of three moving-picture 
cameras and several for still photography had been lost with the 
Karluk, and I had been able to outfit Wilkins only with an old 
cinematograph camera purchased from Mr. John Clark, who had 
been cinematographer with Captain Pedersen on the Elvira and 
who sold it to me after the wreck of that ship. The camera itself 
was not good and the film was limited in quantity and of poor qual- 
ity. Wilkins' valuable work as employee of the Gaumont Company 
was therefore over and he would have returned home the summer 
of 1914 had he not realized that if he failed us no one else would 
bring assistance to us in Banks Island. 

There is no overestimating the value to the geographic side 
of our expedition of Wilkins' decision to carry on at that time, and 
his work in fetching the Star and taking her to the northwest corner 
of Banks Island had been equally good. The things he had done 
could not have been done so well by any other member of the 
expedition. But I was forced to agree with him that for the work 
which we now had before us, which was mainly sledge exploration, 
we had more men available than dogs or sledges. We discussed 
the possible necessity for his taking command of the Bear to bring 
her to Melville Island the summer of 1916, but agreed that her pres- 
ent crew were quite capable of doing that and would probably use 
their best endeavors in that direction. 

It was decided therefore that Wilkins would proceed to the 
Bear and on arrival would discreetly make up his mind as to the 
intention of the Captain and the sentiment of the crew in the matter 
of trying to get the ship next summer to Melville Island. If there 

437 



488 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

appeared to him to be any doubt of their using every effort to that 
end, he agreed to stay with the expedition another year for the 
purpose of bringing the ship north. But if it seemed to him that 
the Captain and crew would make a faithful effort he would pro- 
ceed to Bernard Harbor and thence south and home with the 
southern section of our expedition whose outlined work was now 
finished. 

Upon reaching the Bear Wilkins was to take astronomical obser- 
vations to determine local time and carry that as rapidly as pos- 
sible to Bernard Harbor so as to "tie up" our observations with 
those of Chipman and Cox of the southern section, who had better 
chronometers and every facility for greater accuracy of astronomi- 
cal work. He would there use up the last of his film in getting as 
good pictures of ethnological subjects as possible. He would then 
go home with the southern section, which we expected would finish 
its work that year, arriving in Victoria and Ottawa perhaps in 
September. After reporting to the Government at Ottawa he in- 
tended to join the Australian forces on the French front, probably 
in the aviation section, for his moving-picture work before the war 
had been in considerable part done from aeroplanes, dirigibles, and 
balloons^ giving him invaluable training in that sort of service.* 

As we traveled northeast from Liddon Gulf following Storker- 
son's trail we had beautiful weather and from that point on had 
every opportunity to see whatever game there was on either side 
of the Gulf. But the topography is such that there are few places 
where animals can be seen from the sea ice unless they are within 
a mile of the beach. In spite of this we saw on the average half 
a hundred cattle per day, and from the top of Hooper Island on a 
clear morning a hundred and fourteen were counted. We killed 
none of these, as Storkerson had left for us caches of fresh meat 
here and there. We learned from him later as well as from Her- 
man's account that the animals they killed on the east side of the 
Gulf were fat while those on the west side were lean. This seems 
to indicate that the vegetation is superior on the east side, yet 
those killed on the west side were only four and there may have 
been some accidental reason for the difference. We saw no caribou, 
perhaps because they are light-colored and inconspicuous as com- 
pared with the ovibos. These huge black animals can be seen, 
whether on a snowfield in winter or against a green hillside in sum- 

* Wilkins later carried out this program exactly. He served two years at 
the front during which time he was promoted to be Captain, was several times 
mentioned in despatches, and received the Military Cross. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 489 

mer, as far away with the naked eye as caribou with the best 
six-power glasses. In hunting I usually carry two kinds of glasses, 
six-power for use in twilight, on cloudy days, and when the wind 
is blowing so hard that twelve-power glasses cannot be held stead- 
ily. The higher power is used when conditions of visibility are 
ideal and with them I have seen caribou at distances of eight or 
ten miles. I have never seen ovibos at that distance because I 
have never looked for them where the topography allowed it, but 
I imagine that they could be seen for twelve or perhaps fifteen 
miles. 

We crossed the isthmus from Liddon Gulf to Hecla Bay in the 
vicinity of Point Nias. There was either miscalculation on our 
part or a fault in the chart, for Sir Edward Parry's monument of 
1820 described by McClintock as still standing and conspicuous 
in 1852 should have been visible but was not. We found here a 
small depot which Storkerson had left for the return party, and a 
brief note showing that he was about a week ahead of us. 

At Cape Fisher we found McClintock's conspicuous monument 
— a barrel on top of a rock, the rock itself on a hilltop against the 
skyline. The barrel was filled with gravel into which was stuck 
a splinter of driftwood six or eight feet long, The heavy iron hoops 
were not much rusted, though the top one had loosened and was 
hanging on one edge of the barrel. We could not conceive the use 
of a heavy sheet-iron box resembling a modem camp stove, which 
had no holes in it beyond an opening at one end. It is strange 
that when transportation was such a problem heavy articles like 
sheet-iron boxes and the most massive barrels should have been 
hauled such a distance. Apparently the intention must have been 
that these packages should protect the contents from animals, but 
in a rocky country a better protection could easily have been made 
out of stones that did not have to be brought along. 

We did not pry into the barrel at this time but on a later visit 
Storkerson found in it the following record:* 

Cylinder J hurled 10 feet true North from .this Cairn. None. 

Traces. None found. 

Party. Returning to their ship. Have searched this coast to longi- 
tude 118° W in latitude 75° 24' N. Also an adjacent coast from longi- 
tude about 118 ( ?) W, latitude 75° N to longitude about 116°, in lati- 
tude 77° 24', also islands off it up to 77° 50' N. Have been absent on 

this 4th April, the day we left our ships records 

have been left in several places. 

F. L. McClintock, Comndt. 

♦ The date of the record is not clearly legible — perhaps July 8th, 1853. 



490 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Beyond Cape Grassy we found that Storkerson had struck away 
from the land in a direction 22 degrees west of north which is the 
proper course for Cape Murray, the point where we came ashore 
at the time of our discovery of Borden Island. But four miles 
from Cape Grassy we found a place where the sledges had stopped 
briefly by the way, to judge by the tracks of men and dogs. After 
this the trail led for eleven miles in a direction 20 degrees east 
of north. While it continued in this direction I thought Storkerson 
must have made up his mind to strike for the south coast of the 
new land with a view of exploring the east side instead of the west, 
and this disturbed me for I thought the seaward side should be ex- 
plored while the weather was still cold, leaving the land-locked ice 
along the east coast to be traversed later in the season. But after 
eleven miles of this course the party had turned back to their pre- 
vious one, heading again for Cape Murray. I learned later that 
the reason had been one of the remarkable mirages or "appearances 
of land" that have deceived so many arctic explorers. Storkerson 
told me later that the fog had suddenly lifted, showing a land with 
bold cliffs apparently only fifteen or twenty miles away. This 
surprised him, but after consulting his companions, both Eskimo 
and white, and studying the land carefully through the glasses he 
made up his mind that they could probably reach it that day and 
that he might as well strike it first at this cape and follow it 
westward. But for two or three hours as they advanced the land 
kept receding and getting lower, until finally without becoming 
obscured by any fog or mist it sank beneath the horizon as if it had 
been some heavenly body setting. 



In general my polar experience has been nearly free from the 
hardships that most impressed me in the books I read before going 
North. For nine polar winters I have never frozen a finger or a toe 
nor has any member of my immediate parties. My only experi- 
ence was on my first expedition when I once got my feet wet in 
an overflowed river with the temperature perhaps forty below and 
froze one of my feet enough to raise a slight blister. I have now 
forgotten whether it was a heel or a toe. Since then I have never 
had a frostbitten foot or hand except for an occasional nip on the 
wrist when my mittens have not met the coat sleeve properly. 
These have never been more serious than a burn from a drop of 
grease spattered from a frying-pan. My face gets slightly frozen 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 491 

nearly every day but one gets so used to that that it calls for no 
comment, and my diaries do not show more than one or two ref- 
erences to it per year. Such frostbites are no more serious than 
sunburn. The same has been the record of all my companions 
whether Eskimo or white for the ten years in the Arctic covering 
my last two expeditions, with the exceptions of freezing of the feet 
by Captain Gonzales and a frozen heel by Knight on his trip across 
Banks Island with Thomsen in midwinter. Knight had an idea 
that his feet differed from those of others in being much warmer 
and would perspire if he were dressed like the rest of us. Fortu- 
nately the freezing was not deep though it easily might have been. 
It had the bad result of keeping Knight out of the spring work of 
1916 but the good result of teaching him how to dress and of serving 
as a warning to any others. 

So we may well consider that our section of the expedition was 
remarkably free from the typical ills and accidents of the polar 
explorer. But just north of Cape Grassy I suffered the first and 
thus far the only serious accident of my career. We were travel- 
ing at the rate of about five miles an hour through some rather 
good going when my left foot broke through a perfectly ordinary 
crusted snowdrift, giving me a twinge in the ankle. We should 
have stopped right there and camped or I might have ridden upon 
the load, for when the going was so good the dogs could have made 
easy progress. But I foolishly kept walking for two or three miles, 
the foot getting continually worse. I then rode on the sled for 
three or four miles till we came to Storkerson's next snowhouse. 
We were in the habit of covering two of Storkerson's marches in 
one of ours, taking a noonday lunch in one of his snowhouses and 
camping in the next, thus making about thirty miles a day against 
his fifteen. But this time we camped where ordinarily we should 
have made only a noonday halt. An hour after camping the pain 
in the foot had become extreme and I could not flex the ankle joint 
at all. 

The next day I rode on top of the sled in the forenoon, and 
found it about the most unpleasant experience I ever had. It was 
not only difficult and uncomfortable but there was the continual 
mental distress of being no longer useful but a handicap. The 
day after that we transferred about half of the load from one 
sled to the other and I wrapped myself up inside the sled, traveling 
blanketed and propped up in the manner of white men in western 
Alaska. 



492 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

This day Emiu discovered a small island lying eight or ten miles 
to the right of our course and, as we judged, perhaps ten miles 
southeast from the middle of the east coast of Emerald Isle. 

We were near Eight Bears Island when we met Thomsen and 
Illun with a light sledge traveling souths who said they had left 
Storkerson, Charlie and Noice the day before at Cape Murray with 
one sled and nine dogs. They had killed five caribou but it ap- 
peared to them that the caribou were fewer and the wolves far 
more numerous than the previous spring. 

I sent Emiu then with his fast dogs and empty sled to overtake 
Storkerson, asking him to wait where he was till we caught up. 
On May 3rd we arrived at Storkerson's camp at Cape Murray. 
Since leaving Cape Ross we had traveled so strenuously that the 
dogs had lost a good deal of flesh and were tired in spite of their 
abundance of food, so we stopped at Cape Murray three days to 
rest. Meantime I formulated plans for the year. 

The central idea was that Melville Island must be next year's 
base of operations, whether the Bear got there or not. Gonzales 
was to bring the ship there if he possibly could. My instructions 
specified that under no circumstances was he to move the Polar 
Bear south from where she was at Armstrong Point. If he could 
not come north he was to leave her where she was. If his best 
efforts did not enable him to reach Melville Island he was to com- 
municate with us as soon as Melville Sound froze over, by sledges 
sent to our winter base which would be on the east side of Liddon 
Gulf. 

The families of Lopez and Alingnak, now probably in Liddon 
Gulf killing seals, later on were to kill ovibos and caribou as these 
became fatter, and to dry as much of the meat as they could. I 
would send Storkerson back from Cape Murray with instructions 
to proceed till he met our hunters in Liddon Gulf. He was to stay 
a few days to get them located on that part of the east side of 
Liddon Gulf which he found most suitable for wintering. He 
would then proceed to the Bear with Martin and Illun. After 
delivering the instructions to Gonzales and making sure that every- 
thing was clearly understood, he would take his family and perhaps 
some other Eskimos back to Melville Island where during the 
summer he would be in charge of the meat-gathering operations and 
other preparations for wintering. The fuel problem would prob- 
ably be the most serious and he was to take particular pains to 
save all fat, emphasizing therefore the seal hunting. But he was 
to look around also for coal mines so that if one were found we 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 493 

could use all our fat for light and food. On arrival back in Mel- 
ville Island from the Bear he was to decide whether time would 
allow him to recross Melville Sound to the north coast of Victoria 
Island for the purpose of finishing his interrupted survey of the 
previous fall. 

I wanted Thomsen to spend the summer in Melville Island but 
he was reluctant to do this unless he might go to Cape Kellett to 
fetch his family, and this was agreed. I have always had a preju- 
dice against making long journeys entirely alone, but we could 
not possibly furnish Thomsen with anybody to go back with him 
and he was eager to make the trip alone, so I consented to it. The 
understanding was that he would return immediately to Liddon 
Gulf with his family. He felt sure that the time was ample for 
doing so, but if he could not make the return journey he was to 
spend the summer at or near Mercy Bay, perhaps at one of the 
already discovered coal mines. This is an excellent hunting coun- 
try for caribou on the land and polar bears and seals at sea, so 
that he would be able to put up an abundance of food. Some of 
the meat he would dry for sledge provisions, and with seal oil for 
fuel he would come across to Liddon Gulf about or a little after the 
New Year, 

During the fall of 1915 Wilkins had taken a number of zoologi- 
cal specimens, both birds and mammals. The skins and skeletons 
of these were at the Star. Thomsen was to pick up a sledge-load 
of these and take them down to Kellett, where Captain Bernard 
would box them up for shipment should a whaling ship come in. 
We had some hope that Captain Theodore Pedersen of the whaler 
Herman would bring our mail to Kellett and possibly some things 
shipped in by the Government. I had given Bernard explicit in- 
structions, which I also impressed on Thomsen, that should mail 
or supplies be landed by the Herman or any other ship at Kellett 
during the summer of 1916 Captain Bernard was to make no at- 
tempt to bring them to Melville Island, for I considered his re- 
sources wholly inadequate for doing so with safety. We hoped 
for some scientific instruments which we needed badly, letters from 
friends are always a delight, especially in the Arctic, and instruc- 
tions from the Government might be of importance. But Melville 
Sound does not freeze over until the middle of winter. The dark 
season from November to February is difficult to travel in and 
only the latter half is suited for a trip to Melville Island, as the 
ice bridge between the islands is not available before late December 
or early January, while a party leaving Cape Kellett with the 



494 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

gathering daylight of late January would not arrive in any case 
until after our exploratory parties would be already on their way 
northward. Thomsen must therefore return to Melville Island 
immediately, spending only a day or two at Kellett; for otherwise 
he would fail to get back to us in time to be of any use in next 
year's exploratory work. 

Castel, Emiu and Natkusiak I would take with me for some 
distance and send them back in ample time to get to Melville Island 
before the break-up to help Storkerson during the midsummer and 
autumn in the hunting and in the making of dried meat. 

In view of my sprained ankle I had to consider returning to 
Melville Island, entrusting the advance work to some one else, 
perhaps Castel. I concluded, however, that there was no need 
for my doing so, since we had provisions to last at least thirty days. 
I had always heard that a sprain required about a month for recov- 
ery and I expected to ride in the sled for that time. This would 
give a sound foot again by the time it was needed for hunting, 
and anyway seal-hunting in the summer consists of crawling and 
wriggling along the ice and that can be done by a lame man as well 
as by a sound one. For the time being Natkusiak could hunt seals 
for us. Emiu, who had never hunted them on the summer ice, 
was eager to learn and so were all the white men, and I had no 
doubt that if I should be unable to hunt they would manage all 
right. We had with us more ammunition than usual, so economy 
in that respect was not imperative. 

Besides two ordinary rifles and a hundred and fifty or two hun- 
dred rounds of ammunition intended for the use of the support 
party, we had for the advance work three Gibbs-Mannlicher- 
Schoenauer rifles and five hundred rounds. Two rifles were car- 
bines which we carried ready for use in light canvas hunting cases 
on top of the sledges. The third was a long rifle equipped with a 
telescope sight in addition to the ordinary sights, and this was car- 
ried inside the load in a heavy steel and wood case. I have told 
how it was our custom on nearly all trips to carry one rifle in re- 
serve, protected as carefully as possible from injury. The case 
this one was carried in weighed ten pounds, two pounds more than 
the rifle it protected. 

Various letters to Storkerson and other officers of the expedition 
were not ready until May 7th, a delay we did not mind while the 
tired dogs were resting. On that date Storkerson, Martin and Illun 
started south. Two days before (May 5th) Castel, Noice and 
Charlie started north along the coast to begin the survey beyond 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 495 

the most northerly point of land seen by us the previous year. 
They had a team of dogs that were fresh because of several days 
of rest taken while Storkerson was making astronomical observa- 
tions at Cape Murray and then waiting for me to catch up after 
Emiu overtook him. 

May 5th I sent Natkusiak inland to hunt. The hunting move 
was to inspire his interest, and to have him find out what sort of 
country it was. He reported that for the first five or ten miles — 
he is a poor judge of distance and never could learn to estimate in 
miles — the land was generally level. It was in most parts deeply 
covered with snow under which there might have been vegetation, 
for snow catches in grass and naturally it is the barren spots that 
are blown bare of snow in the winter storms. The bare patches 
were usually red mud or sand and gravel on the tops of small 
ridges. On this land there were no caribou traces, confirming Nat- 
kusiak's assumption that vegetation was probably scarce; but fif- 
teen or eighteen miles inland he came to rolling hills and later to 
kimirkpait (singular kimirkpak), the Alaska Eskimo name for 
hills that are somewhat angular in appearance and have a height 
of from four to eight hundred feet. Here caribou traces were 
numerous and vegetation abundant. The caribou had been in small 
bands, the largest one of fifteen or eighteen animals. Thick weather 
came on and Natkusiak did not find any caribou, but he secured 
what I wanted — the information as to the character of the land. 
We could hardly have afforded to delay to fetch meat at this stage 
from twenty miles inland so it was lucky he killed none. 

In general the rest of the west coast of our new land fitted 
well Natkusiak's description of the territory back of Cape Murray, 
and corresponded also in topography and scarcity of vegetation 
with the west coast of Prince Patrick Island. That both Prince 
Patrick Island and ours are well supplied with vegetation inland 
and to the east, while comparatively barren along the west coast, 
may be due to geological reasons, although possibly due to the 
raw winds which in summer bring continuous fogs from the open 
water to the west. 

The season of fog was beginning, and for the next month or 
six weeks we had no day that was wholly clear and on an average 
not one in seven that was satisfactory for good surveying, even 
of the rough type we were attempting. My aim was to average 
ten miles a day. At this speed fairly good mapping can be done 
on a scale of an inch to the mile, if conditions of visibility are favor- 
able and the coastline pronounced enough so that one can see at a 



496 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

distance the distinction between land and sea. The coastline here 
was low, which gave some difficulty and is a source of much inac- 
curacy in our survey. But the main trouble was with the fogs. 
Like our predecessors who surveyed Prince Patrick Island, we had 
to choose between doing work that approximated only roughly to 
the facts and doing none at all. Obviously, remaining in camp six 
days to wait for the seventh one of passable weather would waste 
a whole season in the survey of one or two hundred miles of coast. 
When the time comes that these lands are more accessible and 
more highly valued a re-survey will be in any case necessary. We 
aimed merely to do such preliminary work as will place our lands 
on the map about as accurately as arctic islands previously discov- 
ered and surveyed. 

The day after Storkerson left southbound, Natkusiak, Emiu 
and I started north with two sledges, one bearing me as a passenger. 
We made over thirty miles that day and overtook Castel's party 
at their third camp. As we came up Noice was just finishing, with 
the assistance of Charlie, the first snowhouse he had ever built. 
It had been a slow job for him but it was very presentable. He 
had had a good apprenticeship in assisting Thomsen, perhaps our 
best snowhouse builder, who had made all the snowhouses on Stork- 
erson's trip north. Still, the fact that he built a good house the 
first time he tried makes it fairly clear that those must be wrong 
who consider that there is something mysterious about the ability. 

Castel was not at the camp, having caught sight of three caribou 
and gone in pursuit of them. In a little while he came home, say- 
ing they had seen him and run away. Because of inexperience he 
had underrated his ability and overestimated the distance to which 
frightened caribou would run. The weather was clearing a little 
and we could see from the camp where the caribou were grazing. 
Natkusiak and Emiu went after them and got two out of three. 

Spring is the worst of all seasons among arctic islands. The 
total snowfall of the year would probably not amount to more than 
two or three inches of water when melted, but most of this falls in 
the form of snow, mist, or fog between late April and late June. 
As we advanced along the coast of the new land we had to contend 
at all times with these unfavorable weather conditions. One of 
our teams consisted of big, long-legged dogs, another of smaller 
dogs that were used to soft snow, and the third of Eskimo dogs 
from Victoria Island that were unused to it. It may seem strange 
that Eskimo dogs should be unused to so typical a condition as 
the soft snow of spring, but the point is that Eskimos do very little 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 497 

traveling at that time. The big dogs waded through the snow 
without difficulty, the small Alaska dogs struggled along bravely 
and did their best, but the Eskimo dogs appeared bewildered and 
floundered helplessly through the snow that came to their bellies. 

The day after we overtook Castel we were traveling east when 
the weather cleared a little, and we saw the Leffingwell Crags 
straight ahead and nothing but ice horizon and sky to the south. 
Cape Murray was therefore on an island twenty or thirty miles in 
diameter, separated from the larger one to the east by a strait 
four or five miles wide. When we realized this we headed northeast 
and were soon following northward the coast of the larger land. 

The weather was now particularly bad and for day after day it 
was seldom that a hill six miles away could be seen, while more 
often the visibility was six hundred yards and occasionally sixty. 
When it was at all clear the two heavy sledges used to cross the 
bays from point to point, while the light sled that was hauling me 
went in towards the bottom of the bays and crossed the necks of 
lowlands between them. In the evenings Castel and I compared 
survey notes and were able to get a much better idea of the land 
than if all of us had followed one course. We gradually realized 
that we were in a big bay for we followed the land first west, then 
southwest and south until we got around the end of the peninsula, 
when on May 15th we found ourselves again on the west coast 
going north. During this time we got little idea of the topography 
inland but what we saw consisted of low, rolling hills. 

Continual fog and clouds with diffused light caused considerable 
suffering to the eyes and consequent delay at this time. The loss 
of most of our amber-colored and other snow glasses with the 
Karluk might seem a lesser handicap, but as a matter of fact there 
was scarcely any piece of equipment we so often longed for. Our 
one good pair of goggles had to be used by the man who walked 
ahead to pick trail. There were one or two inferior blue or green 
pairs and the rest of us had to use eye protectors of the Eskimo 
type, made of wood with a slit for each eye about big enough for 
a silver half dollar. These cut down the light enough to protect 
from snowblindness but they also limited the field of vision. If 
you had your eyes on the horizon you could not see what was im- 
mediately in front of you, for you had to look directly down towards 
your toes to see where you were placing your feet. But this was 
as bad as looking too far ahead, for it gave insufficient warning 
of your approach to ice hummocks and other obstructions. Sit- 
ting in the sled I needed no protection, for I could close my eyes 



498 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

whenever I wished, and I was the only member of the party exempt 
from snowblindness. Occasionally we had to stop two or three 
days at a time when more than one member of the party was 
severely affected. 

The sprained ankle had been troubling for more than three 
weeks and was still unfit for walking. I had expected to be in- 
capacitated a month but had looked forward to greater signs of 
improvement than this. I began to feel more and more that I was 
a pretty serious handicap to the party and finally decided to go no 
farther than Cape Isachsen on the northwest corner of Ellef Ringnes 
Island where we would get observations for time, and then turn 
back leaving the advance work to a party of two, Castel and 
Noice. 

Natkusiak had been killing occasional seals and it was about 
this time that Emiu killed his first seal by the auktok method. 
He was very proud of himself and his success made me feel easier, 
too, for hunting is a matter of combining skill with patience and 
long hours of work. Patience and willingness to work indefinitely 
Emiu had, and as soon as he became skilful he would be an ideal 
hunter. 

We now had provisions enough to outfit two men and nine dogs 
for about thirty days if the remaining three men and two dog 
teams depended entirely on game, and this accordingly was the 
arrangement. 

I gave Castel and Noice practically all the provisions. They 
were to follow the coast of our new land northeast and east, but 
whenever it began to run south of east they were to leave it and 
strike directly for Cape Isachsen. Here they" were to take astro^ 
nomical observations and leave a record for us, giving a synopsis of 
their proceedings and a copy of their observations. They were then 
to strike north, should they find landfast ice in that direction, until 
they discovered new land. But should they find no landfast ice 
but instead a floe edge running in the direction of Axel Heiberg 
Island, they were to follow it as far as appeared safe, having in 
mind that they were to be back at the northeast corner of Melville 
Island by the first of July. Their provisions would take them that 
far, and although both were inexperienced in hunting I had no doubt 
that when they once got back to Melville Island they would secure 
ovibos, for no one can be so unskilled or badly armed as to be 
unable to do that. 

Nine dogs were in excellent condition and these we gave to 
Castel's party. They left us the afternoon of the 21st, following 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 499 

the land eastward, while Natkusiak, Emiu and I struck northwest 
and camped at the shore floe which was here some six or eight miles 
from land. 

Hunting conditions were bad both as to thick weather and un- 
favorable ice. Natkusiak and Emiu hunted eight or ten hours 
without seeing seals. Thinking the opportunities might improve, 
we started next morning following the floe edge northeastward. 
After five miles we came to level ice of this year's origin and felt 
sure that the sealing would be better. We camped and Natkusiak 
and Emiu hunted four hours without success, but after supper 
Emiu went out again and this time got a seal. 

While he was gone and before I knew he had been successful 
I had come to the conclusion that the food question was getting 
serious and that I had better see if I could hobble around and do 
something. One can usually convince himself of what he wants 
to believe, and I succeeded in concluding that if I walked carefully 
on snowshoes I should be prevented from slipping or twisting my 
ankle and that doubtless going half a mile would not affect me. 
Then if I saw a seal I told myself that I should have to crawl, 
anyway, and in so doing could not possibly be hurt. Here is the 
account of the adventure that followed, copied directly from my 
diary: 

"I intended to send Charlie to the water to sound, but took a 
walk first to an old ice cake I saw over a ridge and took to be a 
quarter of a mile away. Walking carefully on snowshoes over level 
snow, I did not seem to be hurting my foot at all. The cake turned 
out to be extraordinarily high and over two miles off. It gave on 
near view the effect of a many-knolled mountain, and each of four 
successive hills that I took for the top proved lower than the next 
beyond. The highest was probably between fifty and sixty feet 
over the sea. From this knoll I saw the main lead of open water 
trending NE two or three miles west, with many minor cracks 
nearer. There was also a series of patches of open water trending 
easterly a mile or two north of me — I was two miles NE x N from 
camp. To the west I saw a seal about a mile off, and south of it 
Natkusiak and Emiu who could not see it for the rough ice. As 
the ice seemed level I decided to try for this seal — it is a long 
time now since I have been anything but a burden. On setting out 
for the seal I had an adventure that has several points of interest. 

"On descending in the direction of the seal I found a three-foot 
tide crack that, in my crippled condition, I could not safely jump. 
I turned to follow one of the low ridges near the foot of the hum- 



500 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

mock about parallel to the tide crack. The goggles I had were 
made of caribou hoofs by Natkusiak in Banks Island — on the 
theory that they are making the hardest trip, I let Castel and 
Noice take two of the three good goggles we have, and Emiu uses 
the third because he goes ahead usually and therefore needs them. 
These 'horn' goggles, as I wear them, do not allow a view right 
in front of one's feet. I am not sure of what I was thinking, but 
probably of finding a crossing of the tide crack that would not ex- 
pose my foot to a wrench, when I found myself falling. 

"As there is a belief that one reviews his past, or 'the sins 
of the past' as others have it, in falling when the fall is likely to 
end disastrously, I set down here while fresh my experience. First 
I expected to fall only to my waist, as often has happened, and to 
support myself on the edges of the crack by my arms. When I 
found that the crack was too wide and I kept on falling, I thought 
that this was just like a typical Antarctic experience. Then it oc- 
curred to me that it differed from the Antarctic cases in that there 
you could rely on landing on something to stop your fall, but here 
I might fall into water. Then I decided^ on the principle that is 
habitual with me now, not to speculate further but to wait and see 
if I dropped on ice or into water before deciding what to do, seeing 
I could do nothing effectual to forestall either event. 

"When I struck, it proved to be on glare ice — the blizzard 
that roofed over the crevasse must have been blowing while there 
was yet water in it, so that the snow which fell into the crack dis- 
solved in the water. I seem to have struck on my feet, but of 
course they slipped, and I fell on my left side — the one of the 
sprained ankle. The crack was not wide enough for me to fall either 
backward or forward, for my face was towards one wall, my back 
to the other, and the crack at the bottom only just wide enough so 
I could crawl along it, though wider higher up at the place I fell. 

"Before moving I noted the thickness of the ice I lay on, which 
was about eight inches, but with a fresh tide crack an inch wide 
through which water could be seen. According to this eight-inch 
thickness I should have been drowned had I fallen in yesterday. 
In getting my knife (preparatory to making a hole in this ice to 
measure its thickness) I found the sheath had been torn loose from 
my belt in the fall. This made me wonder if I might be much 
hurt, and how long it would be before any one came along my trail 
to look for me — I concluded six to ten hours, for the men would first 
have to come home from hunting and then to wait some time for, 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 501 

my sprained ankle apart, no one would be surprised at my going 
off after seals and staying away even longer than ten hours. I 
next thought that I must have sprained my ankle over again, and 
then noticed a hot feeling in and about the ankle, but found there 
was more pain in my hip — the only real pain, apparently merely a 
bad bruise. I was not stunned. 

''I arose a little stiffly and looked up to find that in falling I 
had made through the treacherous snow roof of the crevasse a 
nearly round hole three or four feet across that gave most of the 
light where I was, though some came through the snow roof of the 
crack and some doubtless through the ice walls. Later as I 
crawled along the floor of the crevasse I found the light ten yards 
away from this hole about enough for reading ordinary book print 
by a little straining of the eyes. I crawled about thirty yards in 
the direction in which I knew the hummock was lowest, and came 
to an opening where the sky showed nine feet above the floor. By 
cutting steps with my knife I got out here. On standing up and 
putting on my snowshoes — one badly broken by the fall — I found 
my foot seemed no worse. I therefore went for the seal and got 
him without incident at a hundred and thirty-five yards. Luckily 
Natkusiak was a mile away on a pressure ridge, saw me and came 
over to help with the seal. On the way home I unluckily slipped 
once and gave my ankle a wrench that seemed to hurt more than 
the fall. At home I got pretty stiff and could sleep on one side 
only. I feel a little less sore now (written 10: A.M., May 23). 
We shall pass near this cake to-day (May 23) and I shall have 
the depth of the crack measured. 

"This accident made my arrival home too late for sending 
Charlie out to sound. The distance I fell was later measured by 
him at fourteen feet." 

There are several points for reflection about this accident. To 
me the most interesting was the number of things I could consider 
in logical sequence while falling and in doubt as to whether I 
should be drowned or should land on ice ohick enough not to break. 
But the most remarkable thing is that such an accident should 
never before or since have happened to me or to any one with 
whom I have been associated. We fall into cracks often, but with 
this exception they have always been so narrow that we have been 
able to catch and support ourselves by our arms. This accident 
would not have happened now but for my Eskimo-type goggles 
with their narrow angle of vision that prevented my seeing where 



502 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

I stepped. I examined my trail the next day and found that 
scrutiny of the snow would have warned me that I was about 
to step on the roof of a crevasse. 

I was black and blue in spots, for glare ice is no cushion, and 
the next day I enjoyed less than ever the jolting of the sled as I 
was hauled along. The fall proper did not apparently hurt my 
ankle, but the sprain received in walking home set its recovery 
back at least two weeks. 

The hunting continued bad, not through any real scarcity of 
seals, but because of the thick weather that prevented them from 
basking on the ice, and because of wind conditions that pressed 
the loose ice in so that sealing in open water could rarely be carried 
out. On such occasions I have envied the explorers who have oper- 
ated farther east. Sverdrup, for instance, three or four hundred 
miles east of us kept running into polar bears, but along the floe 
edge between latitudes 76 and 80 we never saw even a single track 
in two years. His lands were inhabited by ovibos, the most con- 
spicuous of all animals and nearly the only one that does not try- 
to flee from the hunter, while ours had only caribou, so continually 
on their guard against wolves that only men of experience could be 
expected to get many of them. Sverdrup also found walrus. As 
to the presence of bears, ovibos and walrus the experience of all 
explorers to the east has been much the same, and I have learned 
since that our contemporary, MacMillan, was finding an abundance 
of polar bears and ovibos at this very time. We had to make our 
living from the elusive seal, which is on the whole the most difiicult 
of all north polar animals to get. I don't think there were more 
than one or two seals secured by all the British polar explorers that 
searched for Sir John Franklin in the region southeast of us, although 
the diaries of several commanders as published in the Parliamen- 
tary Blue Books show that attempts were made to get them. 

As previously observed the ease of catching seals is taken for 
granted by those who in recent years have read narratives of the 
Antarctic. The implements needed for the butchery are a hammer 
to stun the animal and a knife to cut its throat. It is also well 
known that schooners go out from Newfoundland and Norway and 
kill seals by the ten thousand. The explanation here is again 
largely the same as in the Antarctic ; the seal has no "natural ene- 
mies" and is therefore largely devoid of fear in the regions where 
the commercial sealing is done. 

But in the Arctic the seals that bask on the ice or swim in the 
water have to be continually on the alert against the polar bear. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 503 

Whatever they smell or hear or whatever they see, they instantly 
act on the presumption that a bear is the cause. From this it re- 
sults that men who have been successful sealers on Norwegian or 
Newfoundland ships have later as members of polar expeditions 
been unable to get a single seal during the spring when they bask 
on the ice, except such as happen to be lying in the vicinity of 
rough ice so that the hunter could sneak up behind cover and fire 
from ambush. 

Luck turned after a few days and Natkusiak and Emiu got 
several seals. By that time the dogs had been thoroughly rested. 
We had never stinted their food, feeling certain that we should 
eventually get plenty. When we had three or four hundred pounds 
of meat and blubber to take with us, the dogs were in such good 
condition and excellent spirits that we were able to make great speed 
towards Cape Isachsen, where we arrived the last day of May. 

On the way from the northwest corner of our new land to Cape 
Isachsen we had been crossing the mouth of a strait. We carried 
a line of soundings and found the greatest depth to be four hun- 
dred and fifty meters, with strong currents to the northwest and 
southeast, apparently tide currents. 

The sandbar where we camped we thought was sure to be 
Cape Isachsen, yet we began to doubt it next day when in clear 
weather we found no trace of Castel's party. We supposed that 
he would have been here four or five days before. His instruc- 
tions had been to erect a conspicuous monument, and the land 
was so flat that no such monument could possibly conceal itself. 
We did not have long to worry, however, for, greatly to our sur- 
prise, I saw through my glasses towards evening some black specks 
on the ice eight or ten miles south. We put up a flag on an ice 
cake thirty or forty feet high to guide them to us. But apparently 
Castel was as sure of our being behind him as we had been 
of his being ahead, so that he failed to look around with his glasses 
and did not see our flag. To use field glasses carefully every 
hour or two for ten or fifteen minutes is one of the most difficult 
practices to teach white men and is one in which most Alaskan 
Eskimos are greatly superior. During the thirty or forty years 
since they first got telescopes and field glasses they have learned 
in their hunting to depend upon them so exclusively that there 
are few animals seen with the bare eyes that have not been pre- 
viously discovered with the glasses. In spite of all we could do by 
climbing up and down over the hummocks and waving our coats, 
Castel pitched camp three or four miles away, oblivious of our near- 



604 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ness, and I had to send Emiu with a message to bring them over 
to our camp. 

Comparison of notes between Castel's party and mine brought 
out clearly once more the great advantage of "living off the coun- 
try." We had given him nearly all our provisions, but this had 
not turned out to be for his advantage, for hauling the food had 
made his progress slow and had tired out his dogs. Struggling 
ahead as fast as possible, the men harnessing themselves to the 
sled to help pull it along, their progress through the soft snow had 
been only eight or ten miles a day. We were carrying loads 
less than half as heavy and even with me on one of the sleds and 
the other men riding occasionally, we had traveled at such a speed 
as to cover in one day what it took Castel three to make, with the 
result that, although his route had been not more than ten or 
fifteen miles longer than ours and though he had had no delays and 
we many, we arrived ahead of him. Not only that, but the dogs 
which had been picked for him because they were the fattest and 
in best working condition were now tired and thin, while ours 
which had been tired and poor were now fresh and had more 
than caught up to Castel's as to fatness. 

During that last week or two I must have been suffering from 
an attack of nerves brought on probably by my helplessness and 
inactivity. On May 29th, for instance, the following is part of a 
diary entry: 

"The future is beginning to look black to me. My fall into the 
crevasse seems to have set my foot back to where it was nearly 
a month earlier and increases the probability of permanent weak- 
ening of the ankle, just when I need every physical resource to 
bring my work to success. I have never endured anything harder 
than lying at home in camp now when we need meat both as food 
and to encourage the men. Emiu is turning out badly. He is 
continually peevish, complaining of hardships and talking of the 
various charms of the salmon and mosquito country from which 
he comes. Natkusiak is becoming affected." 

In many ways Emiu was one of the best Eskimo companions I 
have had. He could run all day without geting tired and there 
was not a lazy bone in him, but at Nome he had picked up the 
typical laboring man's idea as to what constitutes good food. Cas- 
tel was one of my best men, energetic, efficient and not devoid 
of ambition. In the navigation school which he had attended in 
Holland to prepare himself to be a ship's officer, he had learned 
the use of astronomical instruments and was competent not only 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 505 

to find his position with the sextant and chronometer, but could 
make as good a survey of a coastline as any one who was travel- 
ing at ten to fifteen miles a day under difficult weather conditions. 
But he also had the common ideas about food, and had never any 
more than Emiu been converted to the view that one can be 
healthy and happy on a diet of meat alone. 

As I lay in the camp or rode bundled up in the sled, I became 
unreasonably irritated by hearing Castel and Emiu talking con- 
tinually about the delights of tinned sardines, which was Emiu's 
favorite food, or boiled potatoes, which was Castel's dream. Noice 
and Charlie were quite different. They had faith in the suitability 
of a meat diet for health and no feeling that they were being de- 
graded by being compelled to live on inferior food. It was the 
second day when Castel and Emiu were having their first meal to- 
gether after a separation of more than ten days and were chanting 
to each other the praises of potatoes and sardines that I lost pa- 
tience and decided to send them where they could have them to 
their hearts' content. As said above, this was doubtless a case of 
nerves brought on by my invalidism. Under ordinary conditions I 
have been able to listen to such talk by the month, knowing that 
the men would forget all about it when the last food brought from 
home was gone and they had been for a few weeks on a straight 
meat diet. 

I had the self-control to wait till the first irritation had passed 
before speaking. I then told Castel that I had made up my mind 
not to send him ahead but back to the Bear. I told him that our ex- 
perience of the last ten days had shown that the exploratory party 
could make better progress by traveling light and living by hunting, 
even though I should be carried as baggage, than by carrying pro- 
visions. I told him also that I realized what a hardship it was for 
him to do without the food that sailors are used to. Natkusiak 
would go back with him and Emiu, but only as far as Melville 
Island. I knew that as soon as he was separated from Castel 
and Emiu his discontent would disappear, for we had already lived 
together for years by hunting. It was a life which Natkusiak 
really liked although he had lately been somewhat discontented in 
sympathy with the malcontents. He was something like a man 
who never used to take a drink but began to echo the talk of others 
about the delights of cocktails when prohibition came in force. 

Once resolved to send Castel back from Cape Isachsen instead 
of going back myself, my mind began on various schemes and 
dreams connected with this altered program. I was already com- 



506 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

mitted to wintering on Melville Island the next year whether the 
Bear got there or not, but it now appeared to me that we could do 
much better than that. We could divide our party, the larger num- 
ber wintering in Melville Island and a few of us spending the 
winter at Cape James Murray. I talked this over with Natkusiak 
and found him enthusiastic for the plan, provided we could get 
the right people to be with us. I thought that Charlie and Noice 
would be ideal and Natkusiak's opinion was that Alingnak's fam- 
ily would be a suitable addition. 

A special letter of instructions to Storkerson covered this plan. 
Immediately on the arrival of Castel's party in Liddon Gulf, Stor- 
kerson was to fit out Natkusiak and Alingnak's family with one 
or two sleds and they were to proceed by way of Cape Grassy to 
Cape James Murray, where my party would join them probably 
in September or October although we might make an effort to get 
there in late July. I expected that making a living at Cape Mur- 
ray would be a good deal more difficult than in Melville Island, 
although I had little doubt that we could do it. Nevertheless, the 
plan was to have only a few dogs with us there during the winter, 
Storkerson keeping the greater number in Melville Island where 
the ovibos makes life simple. Being long past the idea that travel- 
ing in the darkness of winter is impossible we planned that sledge 
parties should be on the road all winter between Melville Island 
and Cape Murray, thus giving a base for the spring work four 
hundred miles north of Kellett. But while traveling in darkness is 
feasible hunting is not, and the intention was to accumulate at Mur- 
ray by freighting from Melville Island dried ovibos meat and fat 
so that we could start thence with loaded sledges northward in 
the spring before the arrival of hunting light, these provisions tak- 
ing us through the first month or six weeks and into the period of 
abundant daylight. 

My thoughts centered around this during the whole summer. It 
was one of the most fascinating undertakings we have ever planned 
because so different from anything that has been tried in the 
remote Arctic. The only analogy was John Rae's wintering in 
Repulse Bay on the mainland 600 miles farther south. 

Before Castel started back we took several sets of observations 
at Cape Isachsen and were considerably disturbed to find that the 
observations placed us farther east than Cape Isachsen is on the 
map. At that time we supposed that our watches must be wrong, 
thinking that Cape Isachsen must surely have been correctly lo- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 507 

cated, as the journey from Sverdrup's winter quarters to the 
Cape and back again is so short that Isachsen's pocket chronometer 
could scarcely be supposed to have gone wrong in that distance. 
I have since learned by reading the account of Isachsen's journey 
that no observations were taken at Cape Isachsen and the place 
was laid down on the map by dead reckoning. Our watches were 
probably right after all, and Isachsen had made an error in his 
reckoning. 

It took two days to get everything ready for sending Castel 
back. This time was needed mainly for talking over plans and 
writing letters of instructions to govern his journey south and oth- 
ers to supplement directions already sent to Storkerson and Gon- 
zales. Both Castel and Emiu now experienced something of a 
change of heart with regard to potatoes and sardines and asked 
me not to send them back to the Bear, professing eagerness to 
spend the summer in Melville Island and willingness to try to 
accustom themselves to a meat diet. Without agreeing at the 
time, I wrote Storkerson that he should have a talk with them 
when they arrived and decide whether to keep them with him in 
Melville Island on meat or send them to Banks Island to the 
Bear and the groceries. 

In planning Castel's journey southward, I made the assumption 
that the Admiralty chart Number 2118 which we carried was sub- 
stantially right in laying down King Christian Island as a land 
at least eighty or ninety miles in diameter, lying south of the 
Ringnes Islands. We thought King Christian Island was probably 
even bigger than that, and was indeed the east end of our new land. 
I accordingly instructed Castel to head for the northwest coast of 
King Christian Island as charted, and try to determine whether 
it was a separate land or one with Borden Island. If it were a 
separate land, he was to follow the west coast down to where 
Sherard Osborn had laid down Findlay Land, then strike for the 
vicinity of Cape Richards. He would proceed south through 
Hecla Bay across into Liddon Gulf, deliver my letters to Storker- 
son, and then continue according to Storkerson's decision. 

Before Castel left I was done with my irritation on the score 
of sardines and potatoes but there still appeared a good reason 
for sending him back, both to explore King Christian Land and to 
get Natkusiak over to Cape Murray. Castel and Emiu would also 
be useful in Melville Island, provided they volunteered to stay and 
were prepared to reconcile themselves to local conditions. The ten- 



508 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

day separation between our traveling groups had made it clear that 
I was less of a handicap riding in the sled than double my weight of 
groceries would have been. 

Part of Castel's instructions were that he was to carry with him 
southward certain things which we did not need now but would 
find useful during the summer. He was to make a depot of these 
on the south coast of King Christian Land, or rather on Osborn's 
Findlay Land. My present plan was to return that far south dur- 
ing the month of July and spend the summer either there or on 
the south coast of Borden Island. 



CHAPTER L 

INTO THE UNKNOWN BEYOND THE RINGNES ISLANDS 

AT many places in the North we have seen a peculiarity 
which the geologists refer to as "raised beach lines." Where 
waves from an open sea strike the shore a beach is formed 
having the characteristic features familiar to all of us. Later the 
land may rise so that these elevated beaches are tens or hundreds 
of feet above sea level and sometimes at long distances inland. 
In some parts of the polar ocean there is enough open water in 
summer for beaches of this characteristic type to be formed and 
their geological remnants are discovered at high latitudes no less 
than low in the character of elevated beaches. But in other places 
wave action on the shore is either rare or entirely prevented by the 
continuous presence of ice at all seasons. The force that works 
against the shore is not that of wind-created waves and breakers, 
but the thrust under almost infinite pressure of the edge of the ice 
floe against the land. The action of lake ice on the shores espe- 
cially of small lakes has often been described and attributed to the 
expansion and contraction of the ice surface under changes of tem- 
perature. This force is enough to heap up boulder ridges and move 
large rocks. 

Expansion and contraction of ice may have its effect to a slight 
degree in the formation of the peculiar northern beaches we are 
now trying to describe, but the main force is that of the wind, or 
of the currents which are in the main created by the winds. Some- 
times the ice heaps up on the land and thousands of tons of it are 
shoved hundreds of feet inland and twenty or thirty feet above 
the level of high tide. Such action takes place in Alaska, for 
instance, at Point Barrow where, according to information given 
me by Mr. Brower, the houses which stand one or two hundred 
yards from the beach are every few years in danger. Mr. Brower 
takes it for certain that eventually his large storehouse will be de- 
stroyed in this way, for it was built by white men who did not 
appreciate the distance to which ice may be shoved up on the land ; 
and the beach is already being cut away by waves and the sea 

509 



510 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

is advancing upon the land. At Point Barrow the characteristic 
beach form is produced by the waves, for the summer season is 
long enough nearly or quite to obliterate the traces of ice action. 
Still there are places where gravel ridges will remain for several 
years that have originally been heaped up by ice pressure.* 

But it is only in localities like that of Cape Isachsen, where 
wave action seems to have been of limited effect for millenniums 
past, that these pressure ridges have survived until the land has 
had time to rise. It seems that it is only within recent times, 
geologically speaking, that these islands have been rising, for the 
elevated beaches consisting of gravel heaps formed by ice pres- 
sure have not been seen by us more than forty or fifty feet above 
sea level or more than about a mile inland. 

Now that the rising and sinking of the arctic islands has been 
mentioned we may summarize here our observations on that sub- 
ject. We did not notice in Victoria Island any clear evidence of 
change of level. On the southwest coast of Banks Island are some 
cliffs so undercut by the waves that clearly their force at present 
is expended at least ten or fifteen feet lower than it once was. 
The west coast of Banks Island is deeply embayed and there are 
many "drowned valleys," showing a considerable sinking. But in 
the same locality decaying driftwood lies so high up on the beach 
and so far inland that it seems clear the land has recently risen 
ten or fifteen feet. In other words, there was a period of sub- 
sidence during which valleys cut by running streams were sub- 
merged and filled with sea water, but the turn has come and in 
recent times there has been a rise of ten or fifteen feet at least. 
On the east coast of Melville Island we found the nearly complete 
and unfossilized skeleton of a bowhead whale eight or ten feet 
above sea level and a hundred and fifty yards inland. This means 
an elevation, for we know through observation of many stranded 
whales that their skeletons always lodge not at the upper level of 
wave action, as is the case with driftwood, but at the level of low 
tide or even lower, where they are commonly buried by sand. 
This skeleton was undoubtedly originally so buried at or below 
the level of low tide. The land has since risen and wind and 
other forces have carried the sand away. Though the skeleton is 
unfossilized it is thousands of years old, for the same forces which 
can preserve the flesh of mammoths so that it may be examined 
to-day and is still flesh, can more easily preserve tree trunks and 

*For a photograph and description of one of these ridges, see "My Life 
With the Eskimo," pp. 383-384. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 511 

skeletons from decaying. On all the islands discovered by us ex- 
cept Meighen Island, and on both Amund Ringnes and Ellef Ringnes 
Islands, we have found seashells of the type to-day present in those 
waters scattered so thick as to make the surface of the land gray 
and in places almost white at various levels up to 150 feet, showing 
clearly the recent elevation of these lands. 

While Castel's party set out towards evening of June 4th on 
their search for King Christian Land and the journey southward, 
Noice, Charlie and I began to follow the edge of the land floe north- 
eastward. 

One of the first things we noticed was the gradual increase of 
seals. Although I have in recent years disagreed both on grounds 
of theory and experience with those who believe that seals get 
fewer the farther north you go and eventually disappear, still I 
have not gone to the extreme of thinking that they increase in 
numbers as you go north. The greater numbers we now found were 
there doubtless through peculiar local conditions, probably because 
this vicinity the previous autumn had had more open water, thus 
inducing the seals to gather where they had later wintered. 

I either overrated the disability of my ankle or else recovery 
was remarkably rapid. On June 5th the ice was unusually level 
and there was bright sunshine so that any inequalities in the snow 
were shown in relief by the shadows. Thinking that if I wore 
snowshoes and stepped carefully I should be unlikely to twist my 
ankle, I decided to make the attempt to walk, going slowly with 
a long bamboo staff to steady myself. I struck out an hour ahead 
of the sleds and walked at the rate of a mile an hour until they 
caught up. They then stopped and waited till I got a mile ahead 
of them again. In this way I was able to walk six miles. Our 
progress was slower than it would have been had I ridden on the 
load but I was afraid that these men, being new, might be unduly 
depressed unless I showed signs of ability to help myself. Further- 
more, to-morrow was likely to be cloudy and I would not dare to 
walk. The dogs would need their strength conserved on sunshiny 
days so as to be able to haul me when it was cloudy. 

That evening optimism had returned, as shown by the entry: 
"Richard is himself again, nearly. I walked six miles and felt 
not a twinge, but then the light was good so I saw where I stepped 
and I walked carefully. 

"I shot an ugrug on level ice near a tide crack at thirty-five 
yards, about a mile southwest by south from camp. It is a young 
animal. I watched him over five minutes through my glasses 



512 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

when I first saw him and as he did not move I concluded it was 
a mud heap. When I got nearer he Ufted his head and saw me 
(becoming suspicious rather than frightened) so I had to hunt 
him by the auktok which took an hour. Had I identified him 
at first, I could have secured him from cover in five minutes. 
From a pressure ridge at the camp I saw other seals. For prac- 
tice Charlie went after three that were half a mile away. He got 
a large male seal at sixty yards." 

So the optimism was founded not only on being able to walk 
for the first time in thirty-seven days, but on the foundation of 
two seals killed and hauled to camp where one was more than we 
could use. I have always found it good tactics in the early part 
of a trip where an attempt is being made to convince new men 
that living off the country is safe, to kill a few animals to throw 
away. I get no pleasure from the killing of animals and disbelieve 
in waste of any kind, but the effort is not wasted, nor the meat 
either, if it creates confidence, for that leads to good spirits and 
enthusiastic work with willing execution of orders and all the happy 
circumstances that flow from a belief in the practicability of what 
is being attempted and the soundness of the method used. 

This was Charlie's first seal, and I remember the details 
very well. The weather was fine and we went together to the top 
of an ice hummock by our camp. Out of seven seals visible we 
selected three on perfectly level ice. If you are going to use the 
auktok method, dispensing entirely with cover, it is essential that 
the field of approach shall be so flat that during your snake-like 
progress you are never hidden from the seal's view, for no matter 
how carefully you may play seal, it will spoil everything if he sees 
you disappear for a moment to appear again, for this is an essen- 
tially unseal-like happening. There was wind enough so that the 
crunching of the snow under a man crawling could not be heard by 
the seals at more than forty or fifty yards. Charlie had first a 
careful coaching, ending by having him explain to me exactly what 
he was going to do. He then went out and did it, to all appearances 
as well as an old hand. He became in one jump a good seal hunter 
and after that probably lost less than one seal out of four he went 
after, which is what the record of a good seal hunter should be. 
Here we had again an example of the advantage of a white man's 
more orderly mind. Emiu had been drilled many a time and prob- 
ably tried a dozen seals before he got the first one. 

Eight dogs were in our present team. I prefer six but made 
an exception in this case because I expected to have to ride a 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 513 

good deal. Seven were chosen but at the last moment we added 
Jack, because he was fat and promising. But the day after we 
separated from Castel's party Jack began to show symptoms of 
severe illness. He did not become delirious as many sick 
dogs do in the North nor did he refuse to eat, which is the com- 
monest of all early symptoms, but he behaved as though he might 
have severe inflammation of the bowels. Altogether our expedi- 
tion lost perhaps a quarter of its dogs by one form or another of 
dog disease, but most of these died at home in winter quarters and 
it was fortunately seldom that any disease broke out in our ad- 
vance teams. We were disturbed by the illness through its threat 
to the rest of the team. None of us three had ever driven Jack 
before so that we were not as attached tc him as to some of the 
other dogs, but he took his illness so bravely that before he died 
we were thinking more of hoping he would get over it than of the 
possible effect on our plans. 

"June 6th: Jack is very sick but has none of the ordinary 
'dog sickness' symptoms. He is in pain, eats snow continually 
which seems to show he has fever, and tries to vomit. He acts 
rationally in every way. 

"June 7: Jack is in greater pain and is weaker but acts merely 
as he might if he had some such disease as inflammation of the 
bowels. He ate a small piece of meat to-night and I have not given 
up hope. That was one reason we made such a short day to- 
day. We let him walk along beside the sled. 

"June 8: We started at 1 P. M. but stopped at 3:05 P. M. to 
give Jack a rest. He was led behind the sled by Andersen. We 
started again at five. He was so weak then that he could not well 
stand and Andersen had to shoot him. I was a mile or two ahead 
walking slowly and picking trail (I did not know about Jack's death 
until camping)." 

One June 5th we found an ice hummock with a good deal of 
sand on it, suggesting to me that it must have been formed in the 
vicinity of land and the next summer carried out to sea. Its ad- 
vantage to us was that the sun striking on the black surface had 
made a pond of water at the foot although the same sunlight strik- 
ing on white ice had made no impression. We were able for the 
first time to use thaw water for cooking. 

In "Farthest North," Nansen tells us that no pressure ridges are 
more than thirty or thirty-five feet high and that accounts of pres- 
sure ridges much higher are merely careless statements founded on 
inaccurate observation. This statement has been much quoted and 



514 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

generally believed by those writers forced to rely on books for their 
information.* But Nansen's ice experiences were of a particular 
and limited sort. All those who have made journeys out over the 
ice from a base on land have noted that the pressure ridges are 
highest near shore and get lower as you proceed to seaward. They 
are also, by more elementary logic, most numerous near shore and 
get fewer farther away from land. Captain Sverdrup was with 
Nansen both on his crossing of Greenland and in the drift in the 
Fram, so that Nansen's only ice experiences which were not the 
same as Sverdrup's were on his journey with Johansen after they 
left the Fram, first north and then back to Franz Josef Land. 
But they arrived in the vicinity of land in summer when they do 
not seem to have met much if any landfast pressure ice. It is, 
then, interesting to quote Sverdrup who, after Nansen had retired 
from active ice exploration, had extensive experiences during his 
expedition of 1898-1902. He says: ** "During the day we passed 
pressure ridges which for height surpassed anything we had yet 
seen. We thought of measuring them but the wind was so strong 
and keen that we decided to leave it till we drove south again, 
hoping then to have a better opportunity. However, to have some 
idea of their height, I asked Isachsen what he would put it at, and 
to be sure of his not overstepping the mark I guessed first, saying, 
'That pressure ridge is about eighty feet high, I suppose?' 'No,' 
answered Isachsen, 'it's 120 feet if it's a foot.' How high it may 
have been is difficult to say since we did not measure it." 

Several captains of the Beaufort Sea whaling fleet have told me 
that when they have been in the crow's-nests of their ships they 
have seen ice so high that they could not see the horizon beyond. 
Such cakes would be from sixty to a hundred feet high according 
to which ship was involved. I remember one of the captains say- 
ing that his crow's-nest was a hundred and ten feet from the water. 

The ice ridge from which we had seen the seals that Charlie 
later went after was rather high although I have seen several 
higher. We measured it seventy -three feet above the level of the 
ice on which the tent stood^ or about seventy-eight feet above 
water level. 

On all our ice trips and at every distance from shore we have 
found ice with a certain amount of earth or gravel upon it and 
sometimes fragments of rock or small boulders. The day after 

*See p. 287, "Earth Features and Their Meaning," by Professor William 
H. Hobbs. 

** "New Land," by Otto Sverdrup, London, 1904, Vol. I, p. 375. 




The Pressure of a Winter Gale Will Break Up the Heaviest Old Ice. 








Ground Ice. 

Fragments of earth shoved on top of sea ice. 

A lump of earth on top of a cake of sea ice. 

Over ten feet of clear ice and a foot of soil on top. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 515 

coming upon the sandy hummock we found on top of some ice 
that was two years old or over, a gravel and boulder ridge eighteen 
paces long. At its highest point it was about five feet higher than 
the ice on which it rested and had an average width of between 
ten and fifteen feet. The ridge was composed of mud, gravel, 
slate and boulders, the largest weighing over a hundred pounds. 
Some lumps of soil with lichens I took to show that it had been 
formed by a landslide from some steep and not entirely barren 
land. Apart from this earth ridge, the ice was a perfectly ordi- 
nary old floe. It was now lying thirty or forty miles from the 
nearest land and the depth of water underneath it was probably 
over thirty fathoms, although we were unable to sound right at 
that point; no sounding we got in the vicinity showed less than 
twenty-six fathoms. 

While it seemed obvious that this earth ridge had been formed 
by a landslide descending on ice lying near a precipitous coast, 
this could not have happened on any land with which I am person- 
ally familiar, except possibly on the north or south coasts of Banks 
Island and both these are so far away from our present location 
that it is not likely they can have been the source. I concluded at 
the time that this ice had been lying a year or two ago up against 
the coast either of some undiscovered land or else some precipitous 
portion of the Sverdrup islands to the east. I have since found on 
reading Sverdrup 's account of Hell Gate * that the slide may very 
well have occurred on the southwest corner of Ellesmere Island. 
Certainly the new land which we were presently to discover appears 
to contain no cliffs given to landslides. This and other similar 
mud heaps found by us on the ice in the vicinity, probably show 
that the general current is westward from Jones Sound, taking the 
ice eventually into the Beaufort Sea and starting it on its probably 
circuitous route south, then west and thus around the polar basin, 
eventually to melt in the Gulf Stream north of Iceland and Norway, 
which seems to be the fate of most of the old polar ice. If the cur- 
lent be assumed to be the opposite — that is, running into Jones 
Sound from the west instead of out of it — these mud heaps must 
have come from some hitherto undiscovered land in the north or 
west. 

The day before we found the large gravel ridge, we camped on 
ice where bushels of small shells were heaped on the pressure ridges. 
It seemed there must be a deposit of these on the sea bottom which 

*"New Land," Vol. I, pp. 340 ff. 



516 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the ice had scraped up. The most common were a small, very- 
fragile bivalve, but there were other bivalves as well as snail 
shells.* 

Traveling as we were many hundreds of miles away from the 
nearest base where anything could be .safely stored, it was not 
possible for us to bring home any specimens that were difficult to 
preserve, such as the bodies of large animals or even their skins. 
Charlie collected in his notebook many plant specimens, including 
I believe, a sample of the lichens found on the earth ridge although 
I also took samples of them. The only thing we could do further 
was to preserve a few specimens in alcohol. On leaving the ship 
we had taken with us a quantity of Horlick's malted milk, both 
because it is a favorite food and because it was put up in one- 
pound airtight tins which served a multitude of uses after they 
had been emptied. Sometimes we used them for the protection of 
records we left behind, knowing that these documents would be 
safe till the tins rusted through. But perhaps the chief use was 
as containers for alcohol which preserved small zoological speci- 
mens. These were chiefly shrimps and such forms of floating life 
as we found either in the ocean or in the stomachs of seals. We 
paid particular attention to the intestinal and other parasites from 
which the seal suffers and made something of a collection of these, 
usually taking the parasite together with a piece of the skin or 
membrane to which it was attached. 

♦Discussions and identifications of these shells as well as of all the scien- 
tific specimens gathered on the expedition have been or will be published by 
the Department of Naval Service of Canada as part of the scientific reports 
of the expedition, of which three volumes have been printed and fifteen vol- 
umes are in preparation. In addition there will probably be other volumes 
not yet mapped out. 



CHAPTER LI 

DISCOVERY OF MEIGHEN ISLAND 

THE first hint that we might be approaching undiscovered land 
we got from the fact that when there was a current shown in 
our observations, it was running either southeast or north- 
west and appeared therefore to be of tidal origin. The map as it 
stood before our lands were placed upon it showed a big open bight 
which Sverdrup named ''Crown Prince Gustav Sea." A strong tide 
current is found only in a strait, and were the "Prince Gustav Sea" 
really free from land there would be nothing hereabouts having the 
character of a strait. But alternating tide currents showed that 
we must be in a strait, and that "Crown Prince Gustav Sea" does 
not exist in the form assumed by Sverdrup. Our maximum sound- 
ings were around four hundred meters, which was compatible with 
this being either a sea or the mouth of a strait. 

I have always thought that the discovery of land which human 
eyes have never seen is about the most dramatic of possible ex- 
periences. I don't pretend to be used to it or past the thrills that 
go with it. It is still my dearest dream to discover more lands or, 
if there are found to be none, finally to establish that fact for the 
half million and more square miles that still remain unexplored in 
the north polar regions. But it is probably true that the first thrill 
of any great new experience can never be quite duplicated, and it 
seemed to me that after the currents began to hint of nearness of 
land my companions were more excited about it than I was. At any 
rate, they took every opportunity to climb the highest hummocks, 
and I was glad to have them do it in my place, both because my 
weak ankle was always in danger in climbing, even though I 
crawled up and slid down instead of actually walking, and also 
because I wanted one of them to have the pleasure of being the 
first to sight land. 

The morning of June 12th Noice thought he could see land 
from the top of an exceptionally high pressure ridge, and when I 
got up there and could see nothing that resembled it Noice main- 
tained this was because the fog banks had meanwhile shifted. That 

517 



518 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

day we were able to travel only five miles, for we got into thick 
ice through which it was impracticable to pick a trail in the 
impenetrable fog which had settled down. Just before we went 
to bed Charlie reported seeing what he took for land on the tempo- 
rary lifting of the fog, but this could not be verified because the 
fog descended again. 

The next morning was moderately clear and no land was in 
sight, but after traveling about five miles to the northeast, from 
the top of a hummock I saw indubitable land to the northeast. As 
the ice was very rough we had to camp after approaching six 
miles nearer. The next day, June 14th, we pitched camp on the 
sea ice a hundred yards from the new land, having traveled first 
about nine miles. It had accordingly been about fifteen miles dis- 
tant when we sighted it. 

The diary gives this entry: ''Reached land 12:15 A. M. June 
15, but did not go ashore as I knew the boys were anxious to be 
the first. As Charlie seems to have been the first to see what is 
clearly identifiable as this land, I called that honor enough for 
him and let Noice step ashore first. We saw a seal but did not 
try to get it." Interest was solely in the land. 

This land, first seen, was barely visible against the clouded sky. 
The top of it was snow-covered, with a smooth and oval skyline 
such as I have never seen on any land. It occurred to me that it 
might be covered with a glacier. I had never seen a glacier in the 
Arctic, nor have I seen glaciers in any land, beyond those that fill 
mountain valleys in the American Rockies, Iceland, and Switzer- 
land. As I was still unable to walk far and as the boys were en- 
thusiastic about exploring, I asked Noice to go inland as far as he 
could while Charlie followed the beach a little way, coming back 
before eight o'clock to help take an observation for longitude. 

Since leaving Cape Isachsen more and more birds had been no- 
ticed. Some sandpipers flew over camp June 7th and the first 
Ross's gull June 10th. June 13th two loons (black-throated?) 
were seen flying towards land, as well as several jaegers. On June 
14th when camped near the beach we could hear the cackling of 
geese inland, and later concluded they must have been Hutchins 
geese as no other kind were observed on the island. Next day we 
found a Hutchins goose nest with three eggs, and saw a female eider 
duck, undoubtedly king eider, and two large gulls, perhaps Barrow 
gulls. 

The snowdrifts in the vicinity of this land seen not only the day 
we landed but several days following, showed clearly that the pre- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 519 

vailing winds are from the north or north by west, and the next most 
important winds from the SSE. No snowdrifts were being formed 
at this season of year, but the winds still maintained their charac- 
ter and the north by west winds were especially strong and per- 
sistent. 

Noice went several miles inland, yet his report was not con- 
vincing as to whether there was a glacier. I had refrained from 
saying more than that he was to learn what he could and tell me 
about it when he got back. I did caution him to be on the lookout 
not to fall into a crevasse. Neither had Noice ever seen a glacier 
but he lacked even my theoretical knowledge of them and appar- 
ently thought that their surface would consist of glare ice, or at 
least some form of ice. When he found only a snow surface he 
concluded that it was not a glacier. He found no knolls to climb 
upon although he saw one in the far distance. After traveling 
towards it for an hour or two without getting appreciably nearer 
he concluded it was too far away and turned back. He noticed 
the absence of the vegetation which is usually so evident in the 
Arctic, and kicked in the snow trying to find grass but saw none. 
Later when we talked he was unable to say whether he had been 
walking over land or snow-covered ice. But it is clear that if there 
is a glacier on this island, it certainly does not come down to the 
vicinity of the sea on any part of the coast which we touched. 

This is the description entered in the diary that day: 'The 
land lacks the undulating outline of Isachsen Land (or our Borden 
Island). Near the coast are rolling hills and knobs of gravel; 
inland is a dome of turtle-backed outline, free of hills or ravines 
that can be seen from the coast hills here. There are erratic boul- 
ders, none very large, and gravel but no rock in situ. Charlie 
picked up some worn pebbles and small pieces of petrified wood 
(willow?) on top of hills two hundred feet above the sea. We are 
keeping all these. 

"A beacon was built by Noice to-day on a hill three-quarters 
or one mile east from camp, half a mile from the beach. It can 
be seen with the bare eyes about three miles. It is about three 
and a half feet high. We shall put up a mark of boxboard there, 
so: 'CANADIAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION— June 15, 1916.' 
There is also the record of which a carbon appears on the opposite 
page. This is wrapped in a Horlick's Malted Milk paper wrapper 
and enclosed in a New-Skin can and that in a Kootenay Cocoa tin 
— all three stand for things that have been useful to us on this trip 
but which now survive only in their wrappers. The tin is placed 



620 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

among the upper stones, and the T-shaped wooden mark is stuck 
in among the stones. The beacon is against the sky and will show 
well unless a bear demolishes it. Even then it will show as a heap, 
as does McClintock's beacon at Cape McClintock. I wish we had 
some screw-top aluminum cylinders to take the place of his papier- 
mache tubes to protect these records — some one might find them 
of interest when we have followed McClintock. As it is, if we have 
good luck and the records bad luck, they may be blurred or de- 
stroyed in our time." 

The following is a copy of the record itself as we left it at the 
monument: 

"Meridian Distance about 4° 15' 

East of Cape Isachsen 
N. Lat. about 79° 53' 

June 15, A. M., 1916. 
"This land was first sighted by Karsten Andersen of our party about 
4 P. M. June 12 from a point on the ice by the shore lead some 20 miles 
SW X W from the hill where this record is left. First landing was 
made by Harold Noice about 3 A. M. to-day, from our camp on the ice 
a quarter mile offshore. We have this day taken possession of this land, 
by power especially vested in us for that purpose, in the name of His 
Majesty King George Y, on behalf of the Dominion of Canada, and 
shall proceed to its further exploration by following the coast to the 
northward from this monument and later in such other directions as 
it may lead. 

"Men, seven dogs and gear of our party all in good condition. We 
have so far had no difficulty in securing game for food and have noted 
no diminution in the number of seals as we go northward. 
WITNESS : "For the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 

Karsten Andersen, Yilhjalmur Stefansson, 

Harold Noice. Commander. 

"First landing made at a point about true west from this monument 
distant one-half or three-quarters miles." 



Since separating from Castel's party we had been cooking exclu- 
sively with kerosene burned in a primus stove. How economical 
of fuel such cooking may be is shown by the fact that between 
June 4th and June 16th, both dates inclusive, we had used only 
one gallon. This had cooked two meals some days and three meals 
other days. Perhaps half a dozen times we had found thaw water 
to cook with but most of the time the fuel had had to melt snow. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 521 

Of course such economy would not have been possible had we 
cooked more than one sort of food. We had a few items of gro- 
ceries with us, but nearly every meal consisted of boiled seal meat 
with the broth for drink. 

As we started the exploration of this new land on June 17th 
the sledges followed the coast, keeping to the sea ice, for the land 
was already largely bare of snow. Meantime I crossed overland 
not only to get an idea of the topography but also to save dis- 
tance, for I thought I could cut across in such a way as to make 
in four miles what the others would have to do in eight. In spite 
of light fog I had no difficulty in keeping track of the team but 
apparently the men had greater difficulty in keeping track of me. 
After hobbling along ten miles overland at a very slow rate, I went 
down to the sea and waited about two hours for the sleds to come 
along. When they did not appear I started back along the coast 
and after six or seven miles found a camp in charge of Noice. They 
had somehow got the impression that I was behind them, had 
stopped and waited for me awhile and eventually made camp. 
Noice was in charge now while Charlie was inland looking for me 
on the theory that I must have sprained my ankle over again. 

The season, although we were much farther north, seemed far- 
ther advanced now on June 16th than on June 22, 1915, on the 
south coast of Borden Island. It rained heavily the night before 
and the night after June 17th, and near the coast there was very 
little snow except where it had accumulated in ravines or in the 
shelter of cliffs. 

Sea shells were scattered over the land, and there were the pe- 
culiar ice-built elevated beaches already described. It appears, 
then, that this land has been rising in recent times, in common with 
most or all others in this part of the Arctic. 

More evidence of a rapid rise of the land appears in the islands 
discovered by us and in the two Ringnes Islands than in Melville, 
Banks and Victoria Islands. Skeletons of ovibos are absent from 
these rapidly rising and perhaps comparatively new lands, while 
either the bones or the living animals are found in the lands that 
appear older. Our observation of the habits of the ovibos is that 
they are very unlikely to cross sea ice from one island to the 
other; in fact, were I the owner of a herd of them I should take 
no pains to keep them on any particular island, feeling sure that 
they would never of their own accord try to leave it. We have 
never seen their tracks farther than one or two hundred yards out 
on sea ice. These habits of theirs (together with the fact that their 



522 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

bones are found in the old-appearing islands but not in our islands 
or in the Ringnes Islands) have suggested to me that the ovibos 
spread over the Arctic at the time when most of the islands were 
connected by land bridges, but when our islands and the Ringnes 
pair had not yet risen from the sea or were at least not connected 
by land with what are now the other islands. A later subsidence 
left the animals populating the remnants of the previously con- 
nected land, but because of their aversion to crossing ice they have 
never penetrated to the newer islands. 

On his discovery of Prince Patrick Island Sir Leopold McClin- 
tock was also the discoverer of the eggs of Ross's gull, a nest of 
which he found near the north end. But to this day such eggs are 
rare in collections. On June 18th on a reef between Second Land 
and a smaller island lying to the north I saw with the glasses 
some gulls sitting while two flew about my head, screaming and 
behaving much like terns that have a nest. On the chance, I 
walked half a mile out of my way to the reef and found a nest of 
two eggs. The bird remained on it till I was about fifty yards 
away. There were also two holes where nests were being made 
by other gulls. The nest was little more than a bowl in dry dust, 
lined with a few grass roots and some small bivalve shells, found 
on the reef itself. Knowing these eggs to be so rare, I took the 
nest, what there was of it, and the two eggs. 

Second Land (which I have since named Meighen Island) is 
the most nearly barren land I have seen in the Arctic. There is a 
little grass in places and there are some lichens and mosses, but 
a dozen caribou would find it difficult to spend a season and they 
certainly could not live there permanently. We saw caribou tracks 
that were several years old. Almost certainly no animals stay 
there more than a few days at a time. We saw no lemmings and 
no owls but we found owl exgorgitations, the ordinary balls of lem- 
ming bones and hair. There were the three kinds of gulls already 
mentioned and at least one and perhaps two kinds of sandpipers. 
But it is the paradise of the Hutchins goose. Seals had been more 
abundant around the camp which we made nine miles before 
landing than they had been the entire season, but we saw none on 
the landfast ice during our survey of the coast. The conclusion 
is that in this region sustenance for a large party can be found 
only by following the shore floe. 

We managed to get along for a while on the eggs of the Hutchins 
geese. The men followed the shore with the sled traveling on the 
sea ice from point to point while I walked inland, and when I 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 523 

tried I was able to pick up incidentally twenty or thirty eggs in 
a day's walk. Altogether I took fifty-nine eggs from fourteen 
nests, the largest number of eggs found in one nest being six. We 
shot one goose for the purpose of bringing home the skin of its 
head and neck for more exact identification; since we were collect- 
ing some of the eggs for specimens this was a necessary precaution. 
Apart from the fifty-nine eggs and the one goose, we lived while 
surveying Meighen Island on seal meat already in the sledge on 
landing. 

By June 22nd the sun had gone as far north as it intended, and 
so had we. But I had talked much with Peary about his Crocker 
Land to the northwest, and for twenty-four hours in clear weather 
Noice, Charlie and I took turns in watching from a two hundred- 
foot elevation the skyline to the west and north. There were ap- 
pearances on the horizon which might have been taken for land 
had one known it to exist but there was nothing that might not 
equally well have been fog clouds from open water. The wind 
that day was blowing a gale from N x W and certainly it was as 
favorable an opportunity as we could reasonably hope for in this 
region where clouds and fog are the rule in summer. We could 
see Heiberg Island northward to the vicinity of Cape Thomas 
Hubbard, and the shore floe was plainly indicated both by rough 
ice and occasional patches of water. It did not run in a straight 
line towards Cape Thomas Hubbard but curved well in towards 
Heiberg Island. 

I thought it necessary to explain a decision not to go farther, 
and this was done by the diary: 

"June 23: We were at the north tip of our land and started 
about 4 P. M. to follow the coast southeast. Following the coast 
of this island really means that we are now turning back and that 
the hope of further discoveries of land is renounced for yet another 
year. As I did last year, I set down now the main reasons that 
decided us to discontinue the advance. Though it would interest me 
rather more to go out to the floe edge again and take soundings and 
current observations, the week or so which this would probably 
take would advance the season so rapidly and perhaps delay by 
double that time our reaching Cape Murray. I have therefore 
decided to devote the rest of the summer to two things: (1) the 
further survey of lands already discovered; (2) preparations for 
next year by putting up meat at Cape Murray, if that proves to 
be a good meat district (and if we can reach it) , or going to Mel- 
ville Island to assist in putting up meat, should game prove scarce 



524 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

on Borden Island. Our survey program is about as set down in 
the record on the next page. My ankle continues to give trouble 
but this is not one of the main reasons for turning back. . . . This 
seems as good a game district as we are used to and the question 
of provisions and fuel does not enter into the matter of our turn- 
ing back." 

In a beacon near the north tip of Meighen Island we left the 
following record: 

"June 23, 1916, 

"North Latitude 80^ T 

"Meridian distance 4° 43' east of Cape Isachsen. 
"We are leaving here to-day. We intend to survey the east side of 
this land, proceed south perhaps through Hassel Sound or east of Amund 
Ringnes Island, determine if Findlay Island is part of the land dis- 
covered by us in 1915, and survey the south coast or coasts between Find- 
lay Island and Cape Murray. We then intend to pass the remainder of 
the summer in the land discovered in 1915. If food conditions are favor- 
able we shall probably winter near Cape Murray to prepare a base for 
the exploratory work of the Expedition to the north and west of that 
point in 1917. 

WITNESS : "For the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 

Karsten Andersen, Yilhjalmur Stefansson, 

Harold Noice. Commander." 

Between June 17th and 28th we were able to traverse the entire 
west, north and east coasts of the island, making a reasonably 
accurate survey for the worst of the fog season was over. On June 
28th we struck directly south from the most southeasterly corner 
of our land, intending to pass east or west of Amund Ringnes 
Island according to where we should strike it, for we had concluded 
we could count on no certain correspondence between the longi- 
tudes as obtained by us and the lands as laid down on the chart. 
On June 30th Amund Ringnes Island came in sight in such a posi- 
tion that it was clear we had Hassel Sound about directly south 
and would pass between the two Ringnes Islands. 



^ 



CHAPTER LII 

HASSEL SOUND AND KING CHRISTIAN LAND 

THE season was advancing rapidly, uncomfortable to men and 
dogs, difficult for walking and for hauling sledges that stick 
in slush much worse than they do in any soft snow of winter. 
Most of the time we were fairly wading as we walked. On July 2nd 
we landed on the west coast of Amund Ringnes Island and pro- 
ceeded to follow it south. Bearings taken of the land ahead on 
our side of the strait and also of conspicuous hills on the Ellef 
Ringnes side, soon showed that the strait, obviously much wider 
than the three miles indicated on the chart, is really in few if any 
places less than fifteen miles wide. 

We had been having trouble with snowblindness continually 
on account of the lack of amber-colored glasses. On landing in 
Amund Ringnes Island we were all of us slightly touched and 
Charlie was so seriously snowblind that we were delayed three 
days. In a case as bad as his was the pain is extreme, equalling 
the most severe earache and worse than toothache. 

In addition to the widening of Hassel Sound and the new deter- 
mination of the coastline we were not able to learn a great deal 
about Amund Ringnes Island. In some of the creek mouths I noted 
pieces of coal float, showing that there are veins of coal inland 
which can probably be easily found. This hint is of value to any 
one who may winter there. We found traces of caribou but no in- 
dication that they are numerous. 

Although it was midsummer, or rather because it was, Hassel 
Sound proved rather disagreeable: 

"July 4: Charlie is much worse (with snowblindness), groan- 
ing and in great pain. He could not eat anything till afternoon 
but was a little better in the evening. The northerly gale slack- 
ened to a strong breeze in the afternoon but increased to a gale 
again in the evening. Snow squalls, and sun seldom visible. 

"So as not to risk my ankle, I sent Noice inland to hunt. Two 
miles away he saw a cow and calf caribou, fired at them and 
wounded the cow. He then chased them and they ran off. Too 

525 



526 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

bad, for we are getting near the point where we must have meat. 
Noice must learn hunting some time, and the experience will do 
him good as most people learn best from failures. 

"July 5: Started 7 A. M., telling the "others not to start for at 
least two hours to give me a chance to hunt. One and one-half 
miles south of camp I saw a seal, was prevented from approaching 
nearer than three hundred yards by open shore lead, shot him at 
that range and had to go half a mile around to get to him. It 
turned out he was shot through the neck just back, of the head and 
above the spine. He was merely stunned. I had pulled him ten 
feet or so from his hole and was about to leave him when he began 
to come to life. I should have lost him had he come to five minutes 
later. I expected the others to come along behind and pick up 
the dead seal, so I walked ahead about five miles but, as the 
team did not come in sight in four hours, I went back to meet them. 
I met them three miles from camp and we camped there, as 
Charlie's eyes were troubling him and I feared a relapse. He 
seemed quite willing to go on but I think it best to take no chances. 
The crusted snow is also very hard on the dogs' feet. 

"The seal was needed. I have never seen so protracted a spell 
of weather unfit for men or dogs as we have had since June 22nd, 
and this is the first seal that has come out of his hole, so far as 
we have seen. At the floe (before reaching Meighen Island) we 
threw away considerable blubber but kept enough to last until two 
days ago. At sea one can get seals in almost any weather (if there 
is open water) but inshore they come up only in warm and prefer- 
ably in sunshiny, not very cloudy, weather." 

A day or two after this when I was walking overland and the 
men taking the sled along the ice in the straits, they had the mis- 
fortune to have it upset into deep water. Most of the bedding 
and clothing got soaking wet. It was really a marvel that this had 
not happened before and still more of a marvel that it did not 
happen frequently after, for conditions under which one must 
travel over sea ice in summer are such that it might seem impos- 
sible to keep anything dry. 

This is because in the spring the thaw water sinks to the bot- 
tom of the snowdrifts and begins to trickle along the ice, gradually 
eroding little water courses which grow deeper and wider day by 
day. This never leads to a very bad situation if the ice is of that 
year, but if it does not break up and float to sea towards the end 
of summer, the next frosts make of it the most wretched going 
imaginable the following year. Then the thaw water find^ dq^p 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 527 

channels already made for it and by midsummer the ice is cut up 
into a network of channels, a few inches or Several feet deep and 
separating ice islands of all shapes and sizes. If the ice is three 
or four years old these islands resemble mushrooms or champagne 
glasses — a narrow stem with a sort of wide table on top. If the 
ice is not so old this mushroom formation is not noticeable, but 
progress is a continual climbing up on such ''islands" and plunging 
into the water beyond. Frequently the dogs have to swim and the 
sled must float buoyed up by sealed tin cans kept in the bottom 
of the load for that purpose. When the sled is actually in the 
water there is no danger of upsetting and the task of the drivers 
is to keep the dogs and sleds in the water most of the time, avoid- 
ing the ice "islands" and climbing out upon them only occasionally. 
The great danger is when the sled is crossing one of these islands, 
especially if there are rounded hummocks upon them as frequently 
happens. The sled is then likely to slide sidewise into the water. 
Indeed it is sure to slide, and the steersman's task is to see that 
just before it does it shall be turned in such a way that it goes in 
bow foremost. Sidewise, it will upset, as happened to us July 8th. 

This condition of the ice is bad not only for traveling but also 
for seal hunting. If you approach a seal that is basking on the 
ice he will probably hear you splash, and the least splash, will send 
him into his hole. Furthermore, it is practically impossible to 
crawl snake-fashion over ice of this sort. Thus we must make our 
living in July and August from caribou on the land or from the 
occasional seal that happens to lie near enough to land to be shot 
from shore. 

July 12th I shot three caribou, the only ones killed in Amund 
Ringnes Island. That day we saw the first polar bear track we 
had seen since leaving Melville Island. Judging from two years 
of experience, polar bears are so rare on the west coast of Prince 
Patrick Island and in the vicinity of our new lands and Isachsen 
Land that they may be said not to exist there. As we proceeded 
south birds increased in variety. There were snow buntings, terns, 
old squaw ducks, and owls, in addition to the birds seen farther 
north. With caribou on the land, there were sure to be wolves, 
but we saw only their tracks. 

July 14th we crossed the straits, which in this vicinity were 
about fifteen miles wide, and as usual ran a line of soundings. 
Bear tracks became more numerous. July 18th and 19th we 
stopped for two days near the southern end of Hassel Sound to 



528 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

take a series of tide observations, records ten minutes apart for 
thirty hours. 

Caribou signs were more abundant in Ellef Ringnes Island than 
they had been east of Hassel Sound. Traces of wolves were also 
numerous. Most of these were of the ordinary kind, but in the 
mud on the beach we saw in various places the tracks of one animal 
that seemed to have smaller feet than any wolf should have. Of 
course, the pups are not large at this season but they should be 
with their mothers and going about in bands. This animal had 
been alone; some of its tracks were only a few days old and others 
several weeks old, so it had apparently been living in the vicinity. 

After finishing our tide observations we continued south along 
the coast for about fourteen miles, taking compass bearings and 
making a survey, for we had found that the coastline had been 
determined only in the most general way by Captain Isachsen and 
that our observations would add considerable in the way of correc- 
tion and detail. We were approaching land after crossing a bay 
when we came upon the skeleton of a polar bear. I suppose polar 
bears must die now and then of illness or old age, but the sight 
of this skeleton brought instantly the thought that the animal had 
been killed by men. An inspection of the bones gave no proof, for 
I could find none that had been broken by a bullet. The flesh 
was gone, having been eaten by some carnivorous animals, and 
several of the bones were not to be found. They might very well 
have sunk, for there was now a shore lead varying in width from 
a few feet to fifteen or twenty yards, separating the land from the 
still immovable ice. 

Before finding the bear's skeleton I had noticed a mound at the 
top of the point we were approaching. Presently we could see 
pieces of board sticking up. This was, then, a place that had 
been visited by white men. 

I knew that Donald MacMillan's Crocker Land Expedition had 
its base at Etah in north Greenland, but I hardly expected them 
to be working down in this vicinity. Yet the distance from his 
base at Etah to the west coast of Prince Patrick Island by way 
of the sledge route is no greater than the distance from our base at 
Cape Kellett to the north end of Meighen Island, so that if both 
of us went equally far from home our fields of work would overlap 
by two hundred miles. 

Even before we found the record I was sure that the monument 
had been built by MacMillan. His expedition and ours had pur- 
chased pemmican from the same packers and here were scattered 



t 




CMMiWnotmM 



HUMirr L. Bmoow 



Edmund Otw Hovev 

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CROCKER LAND EXPEDITION 

UNDER THE AUSPKSeS OF THE 

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 

MO TtU, 

AMERICAN Geoqraphicai. Society 

UNIVERaTY OF iLUINplS 



KlEHTiriC STAFF 
Do«tO e. MMKMIU*. A.B., A.M. 



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MacMilmn's Record Found on Eli^f Ringnes Island. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 529 

all about the peculiar red tins. MacMillan was a disciple of 
Peary's and the boards were chiefly from condensed milk boxes, 
and condensed milk was one of the four items of the standard 
Peary ration of pemmican, hard bread, tea, and condensed milk. 
The only other white men who could have been in this region were 
Isachsen and Hassel in 1901, and they would not have carried 
American condensed milk nor American rifles, the empty cartridges 
of which were scattered all about. The beacon was probably 
a conspicuous one when MacMillan built it out of substantial- 
looking chunks of hard earth, and placed probably on top a box 
into the corner of which a tin can containing his record had been 
fastened with bent nails. But since then summer had come on, 
the mud had softened and in part flowed away in the form of a semi- 
liquid, the heap had collapsed, and the box was half buried in the 
mud. 

We were much excited over the neatly written record, which is 
here reproduced as a photograph. It was news — news of that part 
of the world's activities which interested us most, the activities 
of our contemporaries in exploration. It was East meeting West for 
the second time in arctic exploration, the other case being that of 
McClure and Kellett at Melville and Banks Islands in 1853. 

As I already knew from talking with MacMillan and as this 
record showed, we were meeting here also a method of exploration 
different from ours and conducted in a country of different natural 
conditions and especially different resources. He had three Es- 
kimos with him and no white men and was depending mainly on his 
Eskimos to do whatever hunting was necessary, while I had with 
me white men because I thought them better suited for the work. 
He had lost eight dogs and still had thirty-nine at his farthest. 
We had lost one and now had seven. Our one dog had died of dis- 
ease and so had three of his. But he had been hurrying so much 
that between hard driving and perhaps short rations three of his 
dogs had dropped in their harness and had been either killed or 
left behind to die, while ours had traveled in such easy stages and 
been fed so well that they were continually fat and had suffered 
from nothing except occasionally from sore feet. 

Evidently MacMillan had been using the Eskimo method of 
bear hunting, for two of his dogs had been killed by bears. It 
was perhaps no credit to us that none of our dogs had been killed 
by bears, for we had not even seen the tracks of bears until within 
the past few days. But our method of hunting them is the oppo- 
site of that of the Eskimos and involves no risk to the dogs. Our 



530 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

first concern when we know there is a bear around is to restrain the 
dogs and if possible to prevent their knowing about the bear until 
he has been killed. I have argued a great deal about bear-hunting 
methods with those used to employing dogs and have usually failed 
to convince them that any method can be so good as setting a lot 
of dogs on a bear to "hold" him till you get near enough to shoot. 
But it sometimes happens as it did with MacMillan that the bear 
is not the only animal to get killed. I have known Eskimos to hit 
their own dogs. In one case on the north coast of Alaska a man 
shot his favorite dog and never wounded the bear. Though our 
method of one man only going after the bear has no fuss nor 
danger to dogs, we have failed to kill only a small percentage of 
the bears we have tried to kill. 

But if you want excitement, or what is sometimes called sport, 
there can be no comparison between the two methods. I have 
only once seen dogs follow a bear and that was unintentionally 
and with disastrous results, as will appear later in this narrative. 
But I have read of many such hunts. There is a scramble and 
uproar and excitement. The dogs bark while unhurt and howl 
with pain if the bear gets a blow at one of them that does not dis- 
embowel or otherwise kill him instantly. The men scramble after 
and there is a fusillade of shots. In a book for boys this method 
is infinitely to be preferred and for the movies I should think it 
would be admirable. Certainly our method is very tame. Some- 
times the bear walks into camp and we lie in wait for him, shoot- 
ing him when he is in a convenient spot for skinning. At other 
times we have to go afield to get him, but he either never sees us 
or else sees us without recognizing that we are dangerous. When 
one man does the hunting one bullet is frequently enough, and three 
are an excessive expenditure of ammunition. In the two or three 
cases where the killing of a bear has been exciting it has been the 
method of the bear's attack and not of ours that has made the 
excitement. 

MacMillan's game list made us envious, for his chief items were 
animals that did not exist in the territory we had been exploring. 
Evidently his country was a hunter's paradise. He had killed 
thirty ovibos to the east and was hoping to find more in North 
Cornwall on his way back. I have not learned whether he did but 
he could have found others in southern Axel Heiberg Land and 
Ellesmere Land, both of which were within a week or ten days' 
travel from his monument. He had killed thirteen bears where 
we had never seen one, sixteen hares where we had not seen a 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 531 

single track, and thirteen seals to indicate that the only animal 
on which we were relying was also found in his district. Caribou 
were missing from the list but of these we had killed less than ten 
(my diary noted only six). 

We speculated much on the obscure passages in the record. 
In saying 'Tinlay Land (King Christian Island)" it indicated 
that these were indeed the same land and in that respect the 
Admiralty chart was right. But the record said nothing about the 
extent of the land and left unsolved the problem of whether Findlay 
Land and our Borden Island were different parts of the same con- 
nected whole. We were selfish enough to hope that he had not 
gone quite far enough to find out, leaving that discovery for us, 
but we wished we knew how far he had gone so as not to delay 
in the needless survey of what he had already surveyed. 

Around MacMillan's monument were the tracks of the ''small 
wolf" that we had noted around our sounding place and on the 
beach north and south of it. The explanation now seemed to be 
that this was not a wolf at all but one of MacMillan's dogs which 
had not died on being left behind on the trail but had revived after 
resting, had followed the trail to the monument, and had probably 
lived a long time on the bear carcass. Since then he had been 
able to make his living on lemmings and birds' eggs and was doubt- 
less somewhere inland. We kept a sharp watch, so far as the 
weather allowed, while we were on or near Ellef Ringnes Island, 
hoping to find him and be able to take him with us. But the only 
souvenirs we were able to carry home were an old felt hat which 
we picked up on the ice near the bear carcass, and the scattered 
cartridge shells, tin cans, and box boards. 

The boxboards were a godsend. When you wade knee-deep 
and hip-deep through ice water most of the day a dry camping- 
place is especially desirable, but impossible to find. Some days 
the sun shines and the ice is wet from thaw water; other days it 
rains and then it is if possible wetter; if snow falls in summer it is 
in the form of slush. There is no part of one's equipment more 
important than something which will keep the bedding from con- 
tact with the ice. We already had half enough boards for this 
purpose and MacMillan's gave us enough more so that thereafter we 
could keep our skins from contact with the ice. Previously we 
had used our caribou skin bedding in three relays, sleeping on 
one while the other two were drying. This would have worked 
well in sunshiny weather but with the continual fogs and rains it 
worked badly and most of our bedding skins were by now thor- 



532 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

oughly rotten. Still, we had always been able to keep our sleeping 
bags dry — except when the sled upse1>— and to sleep in them com- 
fortably every night. But it had been a hard struggle. 

We rebuilt MacMillan's cairn with mud and tin cans, for we 
grudged to leave behind any of the boards except a sliver to which 
we fastened the same can that had contained MacMillan's record. 
It now contains a record reading as follows: 

"July 20, 1916. 

"Arrived here from the north at 8:10 P. M. local time to-day and 
found a cairn of earth with tins and a wooden box on top. In one corner 
of the box we found secured by bent nails a Kodak film tin sealed with 
tape. This contained the following record, written on a letterhead of the 
Crocker Land Expedition (George Borup Memorial.) 

(Here follows copy of MacMillan's Record:) 

"We are taking the original of the record and leaving this copy in 
its place, contained in the same tin from which we removed MacMillan's 
record. All boards that are here we are taking to use under our bed 
skins on the ice, otherwise we are rebuilding the cairn of the tins it 
contained and enlarging the heap of earth. 

"We are on our way south from an island that has its north point 
about North Latitude 80° 10', about 5 degrees of longitude east of 
Cape Isachsen. We intend to follow the east and south coasts of Findlay 
Island to determine if it is one land with that discovered by us in 1916 
north of Prince Patrick Island. If we knew that MacMillan had finished 
mapping certain parts of Findlay Island and had omitted others, we 
would try to do what is left, but for lack of information we may unin- 
tentionally duplicate his work. 

"We intend to spend the summer in the land found in 1915, if we 
can reach it, putting up meat for sledge provisions for the ice explora- 
tion of the spring 1917. Men, sleds and dogs (7) all in good condition 
but dog harness getting rotten from being continually wet. 
WITNESS : "For the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 

Karsten Andersen, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 

Harold Noice. Commander." 

Events of the next few days cannot be understood without a 
careful look at the map. We had the latest and most authoritative 
Admiralty chart No. 2118, entitled "Discoveries in the Arctic Sea," 
and containing the annotation, "With corrections to 1902." This 
meant that it was now in the form it had after Captain Sverdrup's 
additions and corrections had been incorporated into it. The map 
we publish on the opposite page is substantially identical with the 
Admiralty chart, but to be sure there is no error of transference 




The Ringnes and Christian Island Group as Given in Sverdrup's "New- 
Land," 1904, AND Followed to the Present by the British Admiralty 
and Mapmakers Generally. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 533 

we have preferred to use Sverdrup's own chart, as shown in the 
second volume of ''New Land" by Otto Sverdrup, New York, 1904. 

The part of this map which interests us especially at present 
is called King Christian Land on Sverdrup's map, although the 
island of identical outline is called Findlay Island (King Christian 
Land) on the Admiralty chart. The history of this island up to 
the date of our arrival is as follows: On April 27, 1853, Sherard 
Osborn in command of a sledge party in search of traces of Sir 
John Franklin, was near the northwest corner of Bathurst Island 
and saw land on the skyline to the northwest. Under date of April 
28th he says in his diary: "Saw the new island seen yesterday 
bearing NNE. about twenty miles distant and covering ten de- 
grees of the horizon." * 

From bearings and other notes taken by Lieutenant Osborn 
there was published in connection with the report of Sir Edward 
Belcher's expedition of which Osborn was a member, a map showing 
"Findlay Island" and "Patterson Island" (sometimes spelled Pater- 
son, and Findlay has on some maps been spelled Finlay). Patter- 
son Island was indicated as very small and Findlay Island to the 
west as somewhat larger, but both were dotted in, showing that the 
exact location and northward extent were unknown. 

The charts were in this condition when in 1901 Sverdrup sent 
Isachsen and Hassel to survey land to the west which they had 
sighted the previous year when surveying the southwestern part of 
Heiberg Island. Turning to Sverdrup's "New Land," Vol. II, p. 
296, we find a brief account of King Christian Island, and so far as 
I know the only published account, for in examining the four- 
volume scientific report of the expedition I have been able to find 
no material additional information. "In the evening they (Isach- 
sen and Hassel) saw land in the west and southwest, decided to 
drive west, and arrived the next day at Nathorst Peninsula (since 
called Cape Nathorst) , where they found a good deal of vegetation 
and the tracks of reindeer coming from the south. 

"When they turned out on April 27 they saw west of them a 
land extending as far to the southward as the eye could see. This 
was named 'King Christian's Land.' Its north coast appeared to 
be rather low, but the east coast fell away so abruptly that no 
snow could lodge on the cliffs." 

It would seem that if Isachsen's party never visited King Chris- 

* "Further Papers Relative to the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search 
of Sir John Franklin," London, 1855, p. 200. 



534 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

tian's Land * and had no information other than what is recorded, 
King Christian's Land should have appeared on the chart merely 
with its north coast dotted in, somewhat as Osborn had dotted in 
the south coast of Findlay Land. There would then have inter- 
vened between the north coast of Isachsen's discovery and the 
south coast of Osborn's a blank area of more than seventy miles. 
But our Admiralty chart, presumably copied from the map pub- 
lished with Sverdrup's "New Land," showed the coast detail and 
topographic shading as indicated in the photograph (see page 532) . 
This we took to mean that the land had been carefully examined, 
which led to the reasonable assumption that King Christian's 
Land of Isachsen must be taken as one with Findlay Land of 
Osborn. 

We had no doubt that this was all correct, especially as Mac- 
Millan's record said he was returning from "Findlay Land (King 
Christian Island)." 

It seemed probable that the point on which MacMillan had 
erected his cairn was what Isachsen intended for Cape Nathorst. 
We could see land to the west and southwest, but according to 
the chart it ought to extend farther than we could see and we as- 
sumed that it was low and below the horizon because of distance. 

While at the cairn we found another bear skeleton, and on leav- 
ing discovered a third. Evidently MacMillan had had great luck 
with bears. The leg bones of all the skeletons were missing. 

On leaving MacMillan's cairn, or Isachsen's Cape Nathorst, 
we were compelled to go some distance east before we could cross 
a lead that ran either towards Amund Ringnes Island or North 
Cornwall. We might have tried to travel southwest so as to strike 
King Christian's Island (according to the map) at the nearest 
point. But the direction of various leads that were difficult to 
cross made our course more southerly, so that for the first ten or 
twelve miles our average course was somewhere between southwest 
and south from Cape Nathorst. The weather was thick most of 
the time but by the map we were headed just right, for what we 
wanted to do was to pick up the coastline where the detail put 
down by Isachsen meets the hypothetical dotted line connecting 
King Christian's Land with Findlay Land. But when on the third 
day the leads invited, we traveled in a direction between west and 
southwest a distance of thirteen miles. Now we began to be puzzled, 

* Since the above was written I have learned through a letter from Captain 
Isachsen that he did not visit King Christian's Island, but merely saw it 
from afar — from Ellef Ringnes Island. 



isr 



100 



95 



CROWN PRINCE GUSTAV 

LEGEND: 



Coast line definitely Surveyed 1916 or 1917 

" seen but not Surveyed 
Cofist line not visited in 
{Except East Coast Amund Ringnes where dotted line 
de'pendp ^n Sverdrup's Map.) 




■O^^lS'e 



FINDLAY ^ 

IS'. % 

iCRondon "5^, 

I Edmund Walker I . 
^ ^ Gros venor I . 






c»J^\ 11 ^ Patersoii 1. 



DESBAHATS STRAIT 

m 



CORNWALL 



oq 
^ 



^^^ 



I20_ 



.^^ii 



95 



The Same Region as Shown on the Opposite Page — . Cokrections Made 
BY THE Canadian Arctic Expedition During 1916 and 1917. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 535 

for in the clear spells land and land sky showed to the northwest 
but none to the west or southwest. Apparently we were traveling 
into a deep bay with a peninsula on our right. We could scarcely 
reconcile this with the map, but so it must be. Next day we trav- 
eled twelve miles in a direction ten or fifteen degrees south of west 
and the situation became more difficult to understand, for now the 
land was plain and not far away on the right while ahead was no 
land nor even land sky. On the theory that this was a bay, it 
was getting to be an extraordinarily deep one. 

With all our experience of the inaccuracy of polar maps, we 
were yet counting the land to the north of us as a peninsula and 
expecting any moment to find land to the west, when on July 
25th, after traveling eight miles farther, we camped half a mile 
from land. So far as the evidence of our eyes could show, we 
were opposite the most southerly point. It was a fine sunshiny 
day and we should have liked very much to go ashore, but a quar- 
ter of a mile of open water lay between. It must have been very 
warm on the land for it was warm enough on the ice for one 
mosquito to fly out and pay us a visit. Only Charlie saw him 
but Charlie is familiar enough with mosquitoes to make the identi- 
fication certain. I was willing to take his word for it, for I have 
confessed to a prejudice against mosquitoes. They are bad enough 
in certain settled portions of the countrj^ where half a dozen are 
likely to find their way in the night through a window into your 
bedroom. But in the Arctic in the vicinity of the circle they are 
a veritable plague such as no one can conceive who has not been 
there. When you get five hundred miles within the circle they are, 
however, no worse than in New Jersey or Missouri and it is prob- 
able that they are never seriously troublesome in any of the Ca- 
nadian islands more than 500 miles north of the arctic circle. 

After two days of continued traveling west we were compelled 
to go two miles southwest to cross a lead running in that direction; 
then we traveled northwest nine miles and the situation was at 
last clear. We had passed the west end of an island and the land 
all lay to the northeast. The great King Christian's Land of 
Sverdrup's map and the Admiralty chart does not exist. In clear 
weather, from the tops of the highest ice hummocks, no land could 
be seen to the west, to the northwest, southwest or south, or indeed 
in anj^ direction except the northeast. We did see indications of 
land to the north, possibly a small new island, though we took it to 
be the ''loom" of Ellef Ringnes Island far to the north. 

This shows how much safer it would have been for Isachsen to 



536 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

do as Osborn did and dot in his land, restraining his imagination 
from connecting it with Findlay Land and especially from supply- 
ing the detail of curved coastline and topographically shaded inte- 
rior. As to the topographic shading, it must be said that there is 
in the scientific report of the Sverdrup expedition the statement 
that ''the shaded lands are those surveyed by this expedition," and 
that there is no intention to indicate contours by the shading but 
merely to show that these are the lands discovered and explored 
as distinguished from the unshaded ones previously known. Still, 
why should there be several lines of shading leading to small and 
isolated eminences in some cases, as in Ellef Ringnes Island? To 
any one familiar with the ordinary conventions of map-making, 
these are ways of graphically indicating elevation, and so it was 
evidently taken by the British Admiralty who faithfully copied all 
the'shading. 

I have since learned to interpret correctly MacMillan's reference 
to ''Findlay Island (King Christian Land)" and consider that 
thereby hangs a rather appealing story. MacMillan had made a 
very excellent journey from Etah across Smith Sound and Elles- 
mere Land, past the south end of Axel Heiberg Island, through 
Hendriksen Sound and thus past Cape Nathorst to probably the 
east end of King Christian Island as it now stands revised. He 
arrived in thick weather which kept him in camp for two or three 
days. Meantime he had leisure to think of how long a way it was 
back to Greenland and how early in the season Smith Sound would 
perhaps break up, preventing his return. He had estimated that 
in order to cross Smith Sound safely he would have to be back by 
the first of June. The purpose of his journey had been to complete 
the outline of King Christian Land, connecting it with Findlay 
Land (if, like us, he had taken the chart at its face value), 
but he now concluded that what with the small amount of pemmi- 
can on hand and the rapid advance of the season, he had better 
hurry back while sledging conditions were favorable and Smith 
Sound crossable. It is almost tragic, as it seems to me, that he 
started on his return journey without having the opportunity to 
climb to the top of some hill in clear weather to see for himself that 
he was on a small island with sea ice all around, instead of on the 
northeast corner of a large land, as he supposed himself to be. 



CHAPTER LIII 

THE DISCOVERY OF LOUGHEED ISLAND 

I DID not want to break into the continuity of the story about 
King Christian Island till it had been finally disposed of. Now 
comes a diary record for July 22nd, which I reproduce in so 
far as it relates to an incident of that evening: 

"New bear habits, so far as my experience goes, came to light 
to-night. We are camped by a lead about five yards wide which 
we had to follow S x E one mile (stopped then for longitude obser- 
vations). When Noice and I had both gone indoors and Charlie 
was about to come in, he noticed something resembling a chunk of 
ice move rapidly across the lead a hundred yards south (wind 
about west, or a little south of west) . He saw by the glasses this 
was the eyes, ears and nose of a bear. The bear had evidently 
seen us first and when I came out he had commenced a careful 
stalk of us. He would swim along eight or ten yards, then stop 
dead and slowly raise his eyes (and ears, for that he could not help) 
over the edge of the lead and look, but only high enough to see 
my head — I was behind the sled, resting my elbows on the load, 
and Charlie was holding the dogs, while Noice was at the bow of 
the sled, a little lower than I. The dogs never saw him, though 
they had a full view of that part of the lead where he was. 

"It took him about ten minutes to come a hundred yards. 
When nearly opposite our tent and about fifteen yards from us, 
he slowly raised his forequarters upon the ice which was about six 
inches over water level. Then swiftly but without a splash or 
other noise he brought his hindquarters up and made a dash 
straight for me. I had told Noice to shoot him as soon as he 
was well clear of the lead, but he was coming so fast I did not 
care to take a chance on one of our guns alone, which might fail 
to go off — or else the bullet might not hit. I therefore fired simul- 
taneously with Noice. 

"At first I thought he was mortally wounded and probably he 
was, but after rolling on his back he half got up, facing the water. 
As it is difficult to haul a dead bear out of water, I told Noice to 

537 



538 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

fire again, but his gun refused to go off. (We found later that 
sand on the cartridge, or rather mud, prevented it entering the 
chamber. The Winchester safety device — the pin under the trigger 
guard — therefore prevented the hammer from falling when the trig- 
ger was pulled.) As I feared the bear getting into the water — he 
was almost there — I fired again, this time hastily, hitting him in the 
rump, without serious immediate effect. As he gave a side view I 
put a third bullet through the heart — altogether pretty poor shoot- 
ing. Had I been depending on myself alone I would probably have 
chosen my opportunities better. 

"The tactics pursued by the bear were excellent seal-hunting 
tactics, but he showed poor judgment in taking no warning from 
our talk which was in ordinary conversational tones, or from our 
tent and strange gear. Had Charlie not happened to see him and 
had we all been indoors, even though not asleep, I have no doubt 
he would have had one of our dogs before he realized it was not 
a seal and before we had time to get a hand on a gun, though we 
always have the guns at the tent door. Evidently he was trav- 
eling along the lead, swimming, and it seems clear no ordinary 
basking seal would, by anything but accident, have discovered him 
before he was between it and the water. He was fat, which spoke 
well for his success as a hunter. Probably a two-year-old bear." 

Though the substantial middle of Findlay Land or King Chris- 
tian Island on the map had disappeared, I had no doubt that there 
was land in the direction where Osborn had dotted in his discov- 
eries. Heading south we traveled in that direction for twenty- 
five or thirty miles and I have never seen traveling conditions 
worse. In some cases the dogs had to swim continuously as much 
as half a mile at a time, towing the sledge behind them. I had to 
walk ahead picking a trail and especially carefully now, for there 
were holes in the ice underneath into which the dogs would have 
swum as readily as where there was bottom. Part of the time 
the water was shallow enough so that the men could ride but at 
other times they had to wade so as to allow the sled to float and 
thus prevent our gear from getting wet. The stray ice islands here 
and there were worse than the water. We would no sooner be up 
on one than we had to plunge into the next water channel, and 
there was always the same danger of the sled sliding sidewise and 
being upset. The narrow channels were the worst except when they 
were so very narrow as to be jumpable for the dogs and bridgeable 
with the sled. With a fourteen-foot sled an eight or ten-foot 
channel was the worst possible, for then the sled would take a dive, 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 539 

bunting its nose at or below water level into the next '^island" and 
that very hard, for the dogs scrambled ahead at a great rate trying 
to get out of the icy water. 

When the sun was shining they splashed and swam willingly 
enough, but on colder days it was my task to drag the leader against 
all his strength off each ice island and into the water. When the 
team was once in the water they behaved quietly and everything 
went well so long as their feet touched bottom, but when they 
began to swim the rear dogs, which were the largest and usually 
the fastest swimmers, would catch up to the ones ahead and all 
would be bunching up around me. We were using the tandem type 
of harness which is suitable for all conditions of sledge travel 
except swimming, and we usually found at shallow water or climb- 
ing out on an island that the team was all tangled up and had 
to be straightened again. 

At one stage we thought of striking a direct course for Cape 
Murray and traveled in that direction a dozen miles, but the going 
became so bad as to be virtually impossible and we had to turn 
back. This we did, thinking that a lead we had seen running 
south from King Christian Island might be a widened tide crack 
running perhaps all the way across to Findlay Island. The diary 
narrates: "We shall turn back from here to the lead we left two 
days ago. We have now crossed Findlay Island as mapped on 
Admiralty chart No. 2118 and found an average depth of over 
two hundred meters (maximum depth 315 meters) while all signs 
of nearby land are wanting. The lead we were following may run 
from King Christian Land to Findlay Island, at least it trends 
that way the first ten miles or so. The going we are in here now 
may be called impossible — the water deep and the mushroom 
islands so high that a man who has been wading needs to put his 
hands and knees on them to scramble out. It is very hard to get 
a sled on one, for most have not room on top for the team to pull 
and there is not often room for the sled and dogs after you do get 
on top." 

At this season the only passable traveling conditions are found 
along the edges of the long leads. Some leads vary greatly in width 
and are crooked and may come to an end, but there is usually a 
nearly straight lead running between the headlands where two 
islands approach each other most nearly across a strait. The lead 
to which we turned back proved such a one, although it ran in a 
course more easterly than we desired, probably towards some cape 
on Bathurst Island. We had advanced two days westward and 



640 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

it took us two more days to get back to just about where we 
started from. 

Now came an unusually cold spell and we had to break through 
a quarter of an inch of young ice on top of the water. The dogs 
could not advance at all, wading or swimming, until a way had 
been broken through this ice. August 1st it was warmer but there 
were heavy showers with periods of drizzling rain between, and this 
was one of the few days on the ice when we were soaking wet from 
top to toe. Before going to bed we partly dried our coats by 
wringing the water out of them, but our sleeping bags were dry 
and getting into them was something between a pleasure and a 
delight. It seems to be a law of human nature that when you are 
in good health the relief from discomfort becomes so keen a pleasure 
that it compensates for whatever has gone before. Here was the 
most uncomfortable trip that any of us ever made in the Arctic 
and still I feel sure that my companions would be no more reluctant 
than I to do it over again. There is not a single complaint in my 
diary, nor is there one, I feel sure, in the diaries of either of the 
others. This was not heroic restraint, for the discomforts of each 
day were actually forgotten in the comfort of the following camp. 
We did feel reluctant occasionally to start in the morning. There 
are few things less inviting than dressing in wet clothes. Some- 
how it seems to help to have dry things to put on even if you 
know they are going to be soaking wet in ten minutes. 

If there were any intimate connection between such ills as 
rheumatism and being continually soaked with cold water, even 
though you get warm and dry between times, then surely we should 
have suffered. None of us has felt a twinge as yet, but of course 
it is possible that a dozen years from now one or another of us 
may come down with sciatica. 

We had to zigzag so much that it was hard to keep careful 
reckoning, and the continually cloudy weather made observations 
diflficult. We were thirty or forty miles south and King Christian 
Island had long since sunk beneath the horizon when the day 
after the rainstorm, August 2nd, we sighted an island to the south- 
west. After a few miles of advance two other islands a little to 
the left appeared. We did not at first know whether they were 
lower or more distant. They proved lower. It took us the rest 
of that day, all of the third, and seven miles of travel on the fourth 
to get within half a mile of the largest island. We camped on the 
ice for we could not at once find a crossing and were not, in fact, 
sure whether we cared to land. On foot I was able to make a land- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 541 

ing after having followed the shore lead for half a mile. From a 
high hill caribou could be seen on the middle and smallest island, 
so I crossed over and shot seven out of nine fat bulls. 

Obviously seven fat caribou was much more than we could 
carry. The reason for killing them was that on account of the 
deep water on top of the ice it was now almost impossible to get 
seals, and the ice itself had been moving and cracking in various 
directions during the last few days, so that I was afraid that the 
complete summer break-up might come any day, possibly marooning 
us on one of these small islands. I was so much worried by this 
instability of the ice that I should have gone ashore and made a 
summer camp on the largest of the three islands had I not seen 
from the top of it a still larger one to the northwest. We loaded 
seven or eight hundred pounds of boneless meat and fat on the 
sled and proceeded towards this new land. We knew it was a 
risky proceeding for, although the sled was strong enough to stand 
almost any kind of load in ordinary winter going, no sled could 
stand indefinitely the repeated shocks of diving off one ice island 
into the next, coming up each time with a shock like the blow 
of a thousand-pound hammer. 

Our landing-place should have been the nearest point so far as 
the safety of the sled was concerned, but we would have to live 
during the summer on caribou and I was reluctant to camp near a 
promontory from which land game would have to be sought at a 
considerable distance. We accordingly tried to follow the coast 
northwestward and did so for two or three miles. It was an espe- 
cially heavy shock that finally broke the hickory fender on the 
front end of the sled, which decided us to go ashore and call sledge 
travel for that season ended. We found no place where we could 
land except by water. Having this year no tarpaulin intended to 
convert the sled into a boat and relying instead on sealskins, we 
inflated these each into an air bladder having a buoyancy of two 
or three hundred pounds. Four of them lashed to the sled con- 
verted it into a raft. It took the men several hours to inflate 
the sealskins and make the landing, and I got ashore meanwhile 
over some ice that was far too rough for the sledge to negotiate 
and went in search of caribou. We had seen six with our glasses 
the day before and I had them skinned and cut up by the time 
camp was well pitched. This was on August 9th. 

We now had leisure to take good astronomical observations 
and to make up our minds as to how to reconcile these lands as we 
found them with the observations of Osborn. The first island was 



542 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

clearly his Findlay Land. It appeared to be six or seven hundred 
feet high and one or two hundred feet higher than the larger island 
to the west where we were now spending the summer. The most 
easterly island is undoubtedly his Paterson Island. I did not 
visit it but feel sure that it is about three hundred feet high and 
less than three miles in diameter. The middle island where I 
killed the seven bulls is even smaller and not much more than half 
as high. It was probably not seen by Osborn at all or was taken 
for a low eastward extension from Findlay Island. Findlay Island 
is ten or twelve miles in diameter, a fertile island with beautiful 
green slopes covered with grass or with lichens and moss, accord- 
ing to the abundance of moisture and the character of the soil. 
Between it and Third Land is a little island scarcely more than a 
sandbar. Caribou crossing by way of it appeared to wade most 
of the time, so that the channel is here mainly shallow although 
there may be deep places. If so, they are probably near the 
Findlay Island shore. 

Third Land (which I have since named Lougheed Island) 
proved in most respects a delightful summer resort. There was 
not a single mosquito. The country was rolling hills, well covered 
with vegetation, although eight or ten miles to the northwest was a 
considerable area of very sticky, wet clay, and with every stream 
heavily impregnated with some chemical that made the water un- 
drinkable if you were afraid to drink it^ and disagreeable in any 
event. The island's length is about forty-five miles, its main axis 
running a little west of north, its average diameter perhaps twelve 
miles. One wolf appeared soon after our landing but he must have 
left the island. Absence of wolves and mosquitoes, together with 
an abundance of vegetation made the caribou the fattest for the 
season that I have seen anywhere. There were perhaps three 
hundred of them on the island, which was many times more than we 
needed. 

The only difficulty was fuel. Of every resinous plant known 
to me as good fuel not one was found. Neither did we find willows. 
I made experiments with moss and with dried mushrooms. They 
would not burn, probably because we did not have a long enough 
time to dry them between the frequent rains. A few seals were 
out on the ice but the chance of getting them was small, for they 
would surely have heard a man splashing in the deep water even 
though he might have had will power to wriggle in auktok style 
across ice patches and the shallower channels. Then there was 
the continual threat that the ice might move. The movement we 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 543 

feared was not with any local wind for we could have guarded 
against that; but there were plainly strong tide currents, for along 
the beach the ice kept shifting back and forth. Once we thought 
it was all going but it stopped after a few dozen yards. It would 
have been no fun for a seal hunter to find himself drifting off with 
that ice. A whole party with a sledge and outfit might have en- 
joyed it more, but a man alone would have found it an unpleasant 
adventure. 

So the only thing to burn was caribou fat and boards, chiefly 
those picked up at MacMillan's beacon. We stuck them up on 
edge to dry in the sun and wind and protected them from the 
rain. Most of them were about three-eighths of an inch thick and 
from eighteen inches to two feet long, and we made them into 
standard fuel portions consisting of a piece about three inches 
wide. One such piece whittled or split and burned with about a 
quarter of a pound of caribou suet, sufficed to cook a meal. But 
only meals of a certain sort. The heads of caribou are the best 
parts and thereafter the vertebrae, ribs and briskets, but all these 
are bony and with scarcity of fuel we could not afford to boil 
bones. For the only time in my northern experience we threw 
nearly every caribou head away at the place of killing. We re- 
moved the bones from the rib meat and to that extent were able 
to eat the meat we liked, but apart from that we lived mainly on 
ham and shoulder meat cut into pieces about the size of sugar 
cubes. Meat that is cut into small pieces and put over the fire 
in cold water is done when it boils or a little before. For the first 
part of our stay on Lougheed Island we used to cook two meals 
of this sort daily, but later when we had been able to dry some 
caribou meat to eat we used to have but one cooked meal. 

The long weeks of wading through ice water before landing on 
Lougheed Island and the summer spent there with inadequate fuel 
came nearer to being hardship than any of my other experiences 
in the North. But Charlie and Noice were cheerful the whole time 
and I have never heard a word of complaint about the climate 
or the country or the food, though we all talked rather wistfully 
about the possibility of finding something to burn. For equanim- 
ity they were on the whole the most admirable companions I have 
had on any sledge trip. 

We had come ashore because we feared the break-up of the ice 
and the break-up, too, of our sled. But other purposes were to ex- 
plore this land thoroughly and to get a good rate on our watches. 
Occasional days were beautifully clear and permitted extensive 



544 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

time observations, those farthest apart having an interval of 
twenty-three days. 

During the middle of August Noice took care of the camp while 
Charlie and I made a trip of several days with pack dogs exploring 
the island. From hills near the southern end we were able to get 
bearings of points on Bathurst Island. From other hills north of 
the middle we were able on a clear day to see King Christian Island 
and from near the north end were even able to see cliffs which prob- 
ably were on Ellef Ringnes Island. To the west we got bearings of 
two or three points on Borden Island. To the southwest Melville 
Island was not in sight. As with our other lands, we found con- 
siderable evidence of recent uplift in the form of a sprinkling of 
seashells and some raised beaches of the ice-built kind. There 
was one track of a polar bear but evidently these are not numerous 
west of the meridian of Hassel Sound until (as we learned later) 
you get south into By am Martin Channel between Bathurst and 
Melville Islands. 

The summer brought but one flock of ptarmigan and the ducks 
were only king eiders and old squaws. Plovers probably do not 
go that far north but there were sandpipers, snow buntings, owls, 
and the same three kinds of gulls noted farther north. There were 
no traces of ovibos either past or present. It goes without saying 
that there were no signs of Eskimos. We found no such signs any- 
where farther north than the shores of Liddon Gulf on Melville 
Island. 

The few zoological specimens collected were chiefly such small 
things as could be preserved in alcohol in the one-pound malted 
milk tins, but it seemed so interesting to try to get a caribou speci- 
men from a district so far from where any such specimens are 
known to have been taken that I decided to try it. One night I 
killed a young caribou while the boys were asleep, took all the meas- 
urements carefully, removed the skin according to the ideas of the 
taxidermist, and carried it home along with all the leg bones. On 
arrival I woke the boys and we had breakfast together. Then 
Charlie left with the pack dogs to fetch the meat while I went to 
sleep. 

Noice under the influence of my lectures and the pressure of 
circumstance had given up most of his views on meat and how to 
eat it, but he had persisted in preferring boiled fat caribou meat to 
the raw marrow which I had told him was much better. Inside this 
caribou skin the leg bones were wrapped, the bones still fastened 
together by their ligaments and attached by the hide at the hoofs. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 545 

Noice unrolled the skin and thought he would make himself useful 
by separating the bones from the hide. It then occurred to him 
that he would try and see if raw marrow was really good and so 
he broke the bones for the marrow. I had taken so much pains 
with getting this specimen home in good condition that when I woke 
it was some time before I could see the amusing side of the incident 
and console myself for the ruining of my zoological specimen with 
the reflection that Noice had overcome the last of his food preju- 
dices. 

A few days later I took another specimen in the same careful 
way. This time it was safe from Noice and indeed he and all of 
us looked after it carefully for some months. But eventually 
somebody was forgetful and one night the dogs ate it up. Edible 
specimens are difiicult to carry home when the journey involves 
several months. 

On Lougheed Island at the main summer camp we took tide 
observations every ten minutes for a period of thirty hours. This 
completed a series of tide observations scattered at strategic points 
remote from places where observations of tides had previously been 
taken. They have some value but, of course, not as great as if 
the series could have been thirty days instead of thirty hours in 
each place. 

Castel had been directed to make a depot on the south shore of 
Borden Island or on the south shore of Findlay Island. When I 
gave those directions I had in mind the big Findlay Island or 
King Christian Island of the maps and was even of the opinion that 
this big land might be one with Borden Island. We could see now 
that it must have been difficult for Castel to decide how to follow 
these instructions when all the topography was so different from 
what we had expected. Still we looked minutely for traces of the 
depot or a message on the shores of Lougheed Island. When we 
found none we began to fear that we might have overlooked a de- 
pot on the south shore of (the present) Findlay Island. 

Towards the end of August it began to snow occasionally and 
on the third of September, after getting a last excellent set of time 
observations, we started the autumn sledge travel. The shore 
lead was not yet frozen, so we had to go overland. The only dif- 
ficulty was to find the way across a few precipitous ravines. Some 
of these ravines, especially if they faced north, had snowdrifts in 
them which had lasted through the summer and which probably last 
through most or all summers. In a sense these are therefore gla- 
ciers, but none of them can be seen from a distance and none 



546 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

aggregate in area more than a few acres so that we always spoke 
of them as snowdrifts. Two or three had streams of water run- 
ning through a vault underneath, but most were bisected by rivers 
that had cut them to the bottom leaving a remnant of snow or 
granular ice on either side of the ravine. 

A mile or two back of camp was a hill three or four hundred 
feet high which we had used during fine weather as a lookout for 
any lands farther off than the ordinarily visible northwest tip of 
Bathurst Island. 

On leaving our summer camp we built a sort of cairn of mud 
and tin cans on a knoll about a hundred yards away. In it is a 
note in a tabloid tea box protected by an inverted lard pail. The 
note refers to our record on Lookout Hill. The Lookout Hill record 
is in a beacon which is a conical earth heap about three feet high 
with a ten-pound malted milk tin on top. In a small round tin 
inside this larger tin is the record, while the big can is otherwise 
nearly filled with stones to make it more stable. 

"Approximate Latitude TT" 09' 30" N., 
Approximate Longitude 0° 32' E. of Cape Isachsen, 

September 3, 1916. 
"The below members of the Canadian Arctic Expedition have spent 
here the interval from August 9th to September 3rd, waiting for snow 
and ice to continue sled exploratory work. A support party commanded 
by Aamout Castel and consisting, besides him, of the Eskimos Nat- 
kusiak and Emiu, left us at Cape Isachsen June 3rd to find, if one ex- 
isted, a sea passage between Findlay Island and the land discovered 
(Borden Island). They were to proceed then to join Storkerson's party 
who are putting up meat in Melville Island, and Natkusiak with a party 
was to return thence to Cape Murray to put up meat near N. Lat. 78° 
and W. Long. 117° for ice exploration in 1917. We followed shore floe 
northeastward and found new land June 13 near N. Lat. 79° 45', Merid- 
ian Distance, east of Cape Isachsen about 4° 15'. Went around this 
island from the southwest corner, past the north end to the southeast 
corner. Found north end about 80° 10' N., about 4° 43' east of Isachsen. 
Left southeast corner that land 28th, landed on Amund Ringnes Island, 
Hassel Sound, July 3rd, N. Lat. 78° 44'. Mapped east coast of sound to 
about 78° 08'. Crossed sound (about 15 miles wide) and mapped west 
coast sound southward. Stopped for thirty hours' tidal observations 
July 18-19 near N. Lat. 78° 04'. Some thirteen miles south of here we 
found a cairn and record of the MacMillan Expedition written by Mac- 
Millan April 23, 1916. He was then on his way from King Christian 
Island to North Cornwall by way of Cape Ludvig. He reports his party 
all well. Proceeded from here to King Christian Island. Found its 
most southerly point to be about N. Lat. 77° 41', about 3° 33' east of 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 547 

Isachsen. The coast trends north of west from there and the west tip of 
the island is probably not over fifteen miles more westerly. Were pre- 
vented from landing or going farther west by open leads and water on 
ice. Proceeded southerly and landed on Findlay Island August 4th. The 
next day moved to the new island between Findlay and Paterson to get 
some deer meat, and August 8th proceeded to this place where we decided 
to await the freeze-up. Findlay and Paterson Islands first sighted 
August 3rd, and this island August 5th. Findlay Island is also sepa- 
rated from this by a tiny island. Have explored this island about 
twenty miles NNW and find its main axis runs about NW x N. The 
west end of Bathurst Island bears from here about twelve magnetic. 
Are leaving here by sled to-day overland by first adequate snow. Shall 
leave this island so soon as ice conditions allow and proceed according 
to circumstances to Cape Murray on the west side of the land discovered 
last year or to Melville Island, Liddon Gulf, to look for Storkerson's 
party or messages from him. Have instructed Polar Bear to try to 
reach Winter Harbor to spend there winter 1916-17, or at Dealy Island. 
Men, equipment and dogs (7) all well. 

"Have taken formal possession of this land for the Empire on behalf 
of Canada in the name of His Majesty King George Y, according to 
authority especially vested in me for that purpose. 
WITNESSES : "Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 

Harold Noice, September 3, 1916." 

Karsten Andersen. 

Since my first year in the Arctic I have known that thaw water 
on top of sea ice (as mentioned ante) is always either nearly or 
quite fresh so far as can be determined by the sense of taste. I 
had found also when traveling along leads that enough thaw water 
runs into them so that you can drink directly out of the sea. 
The lead which we followed southward between King Christian 
Island and Findlay Island seemed to have about twelve or fifteen 
feet of fresh water on top of the salt. This estimate I make from 
having on one occasion killed a seal which sank but remained 
suspended in plain sight below. We had a bamboo pole nine feet 
four inches in length and by lying on the edge of the ice and stick- 
ing the whole pole into the water and my arm up above the elbow, 
I was able to touch the seal where he remained suspended, pre- 
sumably at the meeting of the fresh and salt water strata. 

But it was a surprise to me as we traveled up the southwest 
coast of Lougheed Island to find the water fresh in the shore lead, 
now of an average width of a hundred yards and more. Yet it is 
certainly no more surprising that this lead should be fresh than 
that leads far at sea should be fresh at the surface. Here we had 



548 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

in the shore lead the flavor of the land water, which was not always 
good. There was the chemical taste in some places, in others the 
little rivers had been running through peat beds, giving the water 
a brown color and peculiar flavor. 

By September 8th we were at the northwest corner of Lougheed 
Island ready to cross to Borden Island but a reconnoitering excur- 
sion proved that the young ice covering the thaw on top of the old 
ice was not yet strong enough. The trouble was not so much 
that the frost at night had been insufficient but rather that there 
was a heavy blanket of soft snow. However, it froze exceptionally 
hard the night between the 8th and the 9th and the cold continued 
all day, so that we considered it safe. 

Our sentiments on leaving Lougheed Island are shown by the 
diary on September 9th: "We left Lougheed Island at 4:20 P. M. to- 
day. It is a hospitable if not a very pretentious place. We have 
not been hungry nor uncomfortable and are taking away with us 
food to last two or three weeks and skins for bedding and for cloth- 
ing. We traveled about due west four miles and camped at 6:35 
P. M. to get our work done before dark so as not to have to use our 
tallow for light. Our good Burberry tent being dark of color and 
double, is a poor place to do anything in after sundown unless you 
burn a light (and this we can scarcely afford for we need all the 
tallow for food). The snow on the ice is much deeper than on the 
land and the sled frequently sinks to the toboggan bottom (so 
that we should have trouble without this useful device). The ice 
on the ponds is barely strong enough and creaks under the weight 
of the sled." 

But as we traveled on in continued frosty weather the ice got 
daily stronger and became in the main safe although we always 
had to be cautious. I used to walk ahead carrying the ice spear 
to test every low place, and occasionally I slipped through. Soft 
snow and rough ice mean slow progress, so that it was not until 
September 14th that we sighted land. We reached Borden Island 
next day and found the ice on the shore lead weak. After looking 
about and picking a comparatively safe crossing, we tried to rush 
the sled over quickly, but it broke through just as we were getting 
it to land, and the load had a close call from the wet. 

Before us now were rather trying conditions. A good survey of 
the coast was difficult for it snowed nearly every day. The black 
headlands that would have been conspicuous a week or two before 
were now white and indistinct against the leaden sky. Daylight, 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 549 

too, was rapidly waning and it was one of our main concerns to 
reach Cape Murray while yet there was enough light so that our 
party could be of some use in the fall hunt. For we were counting 
on finding Natkusiak's party waiting for us. 

The men took the sled along the land, as usual, while I traveled 
overland looking for caribou and learning what I could of the coun- 
try. I have known since I first began to travel in the North that 
this method of advance is not customary, but it is only since my 
return from this expedition that I have come to realize fully how 
severely a method which appeared to me logical and indeed the 
only sensible one has been condemned by many explorers. A typ- 
ical example is from the diary of Lieutenant Sherard Osborn, 
written in April, 1853, on the north coast of Bathurst Island at a 
place that could be seen from our Lookout Hill of Lougheed Is- 
land. 

"We had to-day a painful proof of the danger of people going 
away from their party in chase of game. Lieutenant May left us to 
follow along the upper slope of the adjacent land; the sudden in- 
crease of the gale shut us out from his view, and at the same time a 
fine herd of deer came in sight; he followed them, lost them, and 
saw another herd; still following, and trusting to securing his re- 
turn by some recognized marks, it was not until he found himself 
tired, without a prospect of procuring any addition to the rations 
of his party, that he discovered his route to be a wrong one, and 
we became alarmed at his lengthened absence. The temperature 
continued to fall, and the gale abated nothing. The sledges en- 
camped, and after pemmican Captain Richards and Mr. Herbert 
left with two light sledges to seek him, the weather gradually clear- 
ing up, and most happily so, for after a time they met Lieutenant 
May, who was much exhausted, and returned with him to the camp 
late in the evening. As many as thirty deer had been seen in all 
by Mr. May. Eight P. M. temperature minus five degrees." * 

This adventure that seemed so serious to Lieutenant Osborn oc- 
curred on the 26th of April when there is no darkness even at mid- 
night and when, as their record showed, the temperature very 
seldom went lower than five or ten degrees below zero even at night. 
A dozen other members of my party at different times have left 
the sledges along the coast and have hunted inland, perhaps as 
much as a thousand different times all together, and often towards 

* "Further Papers Relative to the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search 
of Sir John Franklin," London, 1855, pp. 198-199. 



550 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

midwinter when there is little daylight even at noon and the tem- 
perature falls to thirty or forty degrees below zero. And yet noth- 
ing serious has ever happened to any of us. 

On the several hundreds of occasions on which I have courted 
what Osborn calls "the danger of people going from their party in 
chase of game" I have never failed to find camp at night although 
the men had sometimes traveled fifteen or twenty miles after I 
left them, and although I might have gone as much as fifteen or 
twenty miles inland. Of course we observe certain elementary 
precautions. The men have to camp in some place easily found, 
which means that they must not camp where there is any great 
difficulty in distinguishing the meeting place of the sea ice and the 
land, nor camp in towards the bottoms of deep bays. When I 
descend to the coast after the day's hunt I have a rough idea of 
whether the sledges are ahead or behind. I go to some promontory 
they must have passed and pick up the trail, or determine from its 
absence that they have not passed. On occasions of special per- 
plexity the men may put a lantern outside if they have one; or if, 
as in our present case, no lantern is available, they will burn a 
candle within the camp so that the flame will show through. Of 
course in foggy weather and in blizzards the tent cannot be seen 
more than a few yards, but even then it can be found; and if it 
cannot be found (which never has happened to me), you merely 
have the tedium of passing a night in the open or in an unheated 
snowhouse which you have to build for yourself. 

On the journey around the southeast corner of Borden Island 
I had many long hunts inland with very little result. Tracks of 
wolves seemed to me to be more numerous than tracks of caribou. 
Two diary entries of these excursions are typical, except that the 
difficulty of finding camp on the 18th was a little out of the ordi- 
nary. For some reason the men, for about the only time on the 
trip, had neglected to go in close to every prominent headland so 
as to give me a chance to pick up the trail. This was our invariable 
rule. If I found no trail at a conspicuous headland and if the con- 
ditions were such that a trail could have been seen, I assumed that 
the sleds were behind, and in every case except that of the 18tb 
correctly. When a blizzard was blowing and a trail could not be 
seen, I had to rely on my judgment as to the direction to be taken. 
In such case I would be sure to descend to the coast near enough 
to the starting point of the day for the sleds to have gone farther 
and then I would go on and find them ahead. The diary entries 
follow : 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 551 

''September 16: Started 8:30 A. M. and followed the coast 
about S X W twelve miles. Then saw caribou six miles to the SSW 
and went after them. When within half a mile of five I had first 
seen, I started three others out of a ravine where they had been 
hidden till they heard me. These were in long range but I did 
not fire so as not to scare the other five. I had fine cover but it was 
a clear, frosty day and they heard me at five hundred yards or 
over, and when I came out of the ravine they were a mile away. 
They ran WNW and did not stop for at least eight miles (as I 
could see through my field glasses). The other three caribou 
had run north. I did not follow either band as their trails led 
back or inland and killing them would delay us too much. Walked 
south after giving up these caribou and found the coast trending 
westerly. Went down to the coast and six or eight miles back 
along the shore to where I found the camp, which is eighteen miles 
from yesterday's camp. Vegetation sparse the first ten miles to-day, 
then abundant for five miles, then practically none down to the 
coast. Much sand and mud blown out on the ice (from the coast 
hills). 

''September 17: Started 10:30 A. M. and followed the trail 
of the caribou seen yesterday, as the probable westward trend of 
the coast made it seem likely I might find them not so very far 
inland. The team followed the coast, Noice sketching it. Found 
the caribou trail averaged west in direction. I caught up to them 
in very thick fog at 2:30 P. M., shot one only as I thought it 
probable we should find it too far to fetch the meat. These cari- 
bou seem very nervous — they are probably much chased by wolves. 
A wolf came to within three hundred yards to get my wind and 
was going to run off when I shot him — a fine male in medium 
flesh and nearly uniform yellowish-white, weight doubtless over 
one hundred pounds. 

"I carried fifty pounds of caribou meat and traveled south 
from 4:15 to 5:20, three and one-half miles through thick fog. The 
fog lifted then and I saw the coast to the SSW and WSW. Walked 
SW X W six miles to the beach. I then went out on the ice a 
quarter of a mile but saw no trail. As I expected the sled to travel 
close inshore, I concluded the team had not reached this point, 
so walked east five miles when I suddenly came down to a bight 
where I found the trail, which there for a few hundred yards was 
near the beach. This was at 9:30 P. M. Followed the trail west 
till 11 P. M. when it got too dark to see it (on account of the sky 
clouding up). Thereafter followed the coast and found a deep 



552 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

bight that it took me three and a half hours to walk around. Found 
the camp at 3 A. M., September 18th, after a steady walk with 
a fifty-pound pack of about ten and a half hours. Got a little foot- 
sore from sharp slivers of rock frozen at all angles into mud. These 
had (in a day) worn a hole in a nearly new bootsole that would 
have lasted a thousand miles on snow. Thick fog all day inland. 
It seemed to me that in following the caribou trail I climbed 
steadily for ten miles, probably nearly a thousand feet. The hills 
are rounded but there are frequent outcrops of limestone similar 
to the samples we took the other day, generally horizontally bedded. 
In many places, both on hilltops and in water courses, the lime- 
stone is cut into unstable columns — one that I found in a creek 
is fifteen feet high. Apparently there has, therefore, been no glacier 
here recently. 

"The lowland along the south coast is mud and sand, barren 
of vegetation. Strong winds have blown much sand out on the sea 
ice and buried the snowbanks in sand, which may be another way 
of forming ground ice. The lowland (under one hundred feet) is 
about a mile wide along the coast near the camp of September 16-17 
and about ten miles wide at the camp of September 17-18. It 
slopes gently to the sea with little detail of any kind. There are 
some table-topped hills to the northwest and north ten or fifteen 
miles inland. [In one place I had been walking across] land 
thickly covered with grass and moss [and came to] where it met 
absolutely barren land in a straight line as definitely as the edge 
of a plowed field. [This line of demarcation] shows up well now, 
for the snow is held in the vegetation and the barren ground is 
bare, so the boundary shows on a far hillside clearly. Another 
such line [forming the boundary between rich soil on one side and 
sterile on the other] runs at least a mile from the coast at our 
campsite of September 16-17 to the top of a hill three hundred 
feet high. 

"My fine wolf specimen which I should have liked to take home 
will have to be abandoned. It is about seventeen miles, partly 
bare and stony ground, from here to it and that would be a long 
day for men and dogs and hard on the sled. Besides, I am getting 
anxious to reach Cape Murray to cooperate with the people there 
in putting up meat and fat for winter — if anybody is there. If 
no one is at Murray I am equally in a hurry to get to Melville 
Island to organize our work there with reference to the ice trip 
from Murray next year. No sign of Castel and the depot he was 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 553 

to make for us can be found anywhere. By my instructions he 
was to find a sea route, if any existed, between our land and Find- 
lay Island and was in such case to follow the east coast of our 
land and make a cache of certain articles we need on the south 
shore of Borden Island. We have now traveled nearly the whole 
south coast — we appear to be south of the Leffingwell Crags, though 
I have not seen them as yet — and have found neither cache nor 
message. The only hope now is that he may have come through 
Wilkins Strait and made the cache on the southeast corner of that 
island. We can, of course, get along as we are, but a gallon of 
kerosene and some new boots would be a good thing to have. I 
fear this failure to find Castel's depot presages Natkusiak's ab- 
sence from Cape Murray, as something must have gone wrong." 

September 18th I did not get to bed till five in the morning 
and though time was precious, we decided to make this the occa- 
sion of another attempt to get a meridian altitude of the sun, for 
we had been able to get no observations since we landed on Borden 
Island. There had been one clear day but that day I was hunting 
inland. This day of September 18th promised well at first but it 
clouded over before noon and we got no observation. I quote the 
diary: 

"Started 1:30 P. M. after failure to get meridian altitude and 
traveled northwest and then west about sixteen miles overland to 
the sea. Found the sled had not passed and walked back six miles 
to camp. Home at 11:30 P. M. They had traveled by reckoning 
fifteen and a half miles, camping at 7:15. Land crossed to-day 
chiefly barren but some grass. Hills generally slope south because 
of underlying limestone strata which are in escarpments in the 
Coronation Gulf fashion, with a five degree or eight degree slope 
south and precipices or steep sides to north and northwest. This 
form of the hills is doubtless determined in part by the greater 
heat of the sun in the afternoon. Took some specimens of the 
rocky outcrops — these are frequent in ravines and on hilltops when 
you get over five miles inland. Saw one old caribou track and 
the first ptarmigan track since the one flock we saw on Lougheed 
Island. Several lemming tracks and holes. Noice saw a snow 
bunting. 

^'September 19: Hunted overland while others followed the 
coast. They traveled twenty-one miles and I walked about twenty- 
five. No tracks of animals except lemmings. Country low and 
barren, mud the first half of the day but more vegetation and roll- 



554 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ing ridges toward evening. Saw the Leffingwell Crags during the 
day. Fog in the evening but I take it our camp is a little south 
of Jenness Island. 

'^September 20: Started 9:50 A. M. and the team half an hour 
later. Our camp proved to have been about six miles south of 
Jenness Island. About three miles south of that island we found 
a big log (apparently driftwood). It was only five or eight feet 
above sea level but about two hundred yards inland. It was nearly 
my fathom half around it (circumference eleven or twelve feet). 
It seems to me this is the biggest log I ever saw in the Arctic 
and probably not the same sort of wood as comes down the Macken- 
zie River. The piece is about seventy-five feet long (from the 
roots to where it is broken at a diameter of eighteen inches) and 
lies entirely on top of the ground. It is so rotten you can break it 
by pulling on its roots, but so dry that I thought we could burn it. 
Propped up on end several pieces (I was able to break out of the 
log with my hands, to attract the attention of the men so they would 
pick it up for fuel, for this was the first piece of driftwood we had 
found all suromer) . The vegetation became more abundant to-day 
but changed from prevailingly grass to prevailingly moss and 
lichens. Saw several caribou tracks two or three days old near 
the drift log. I went five miles inland from there to get a view from 
a high hill two miles northwest from which I saw two cows and 
two calves which I shot. 

"Skinned one cow and calf and hurried to the coast, for we had 
only fifteen pounds of food on hand and I had told the men to 
feed caribou skins to the dogs if I were not home by dark. These 
were valuable skins and I was anxious to get home with meat for 
the dogs' supper before the skins were fed to them. Took a north- 
west course and came to the coast about four miles north of Jenness 
^ Island. Saw no traces of sled tracks and concluded camp was 
farther south. Walked to Jenness Island and found sled had gone 
offshore there into the rough ice to get across a bight in the coast 
that is about six or seven miles across and a mile or so deep. I 
had not thought this a possible course for them to take, for there 
is beautiful level young ice everywhere along shore. Followed the 
sled trail and found it bad walking. Sled had also gone slowly and 
with difiiculty, as the trail showed. Half across the bay they had 
realized their mistake and had cut inshore, reaching the level ice 
about two hundred yards north of where I had reached it coming 
from inland. All this delayed me two and a half hours and I got 
to camp half an hour after the dogs had eaten the caribou skins. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 555 

These were not first quality skins but I had been saving them for 
making trousers, for which purpose they would have done very well. 
These were three out of the four caribou skins secured in Amund 
Ringnes Island." 

Various hunts over southern Borden Island confirmed the view 
formed the day after we discovered it in 1915 that it is or has in 
recent times been frequented by caribou in winter. This was 
shown by the abundance of horns of all ages and both sexes. The 
oldest bulls drop their horns about midwinter and the young cows 
not till June, but there were many horns of both of these and also 
of the intermediate kinds. That the comparative fewness of cari- 
bou now was due to persecution by wolves I inferred not only from 
the fact that wolf tracks seemed as numerous as those of caribou, 
but from the following considerations: Although vegetation in 
much of Borden Island is as abundant as it is in Lougheed Island, 
the caribou were exceptionally fat in Lougheed Island and extraordi- 
narily lean in Borden Island. When I last saw caribou in Lougheed 
Island about September 5th, the cows had shed the velvet from 
their horns, but on September 20th cows of the same age killed in 
Borden Island still had the velvet intact. I have imagined that 
their leanness was caused by their being harassed by wolves and 
that the slow development of the horns was a consequence of the 
leanness. All this may be bad reasoning, but I give it for what it 
is worth. 

For five days there is a blank in the diary, partly because of 
the mental depression which appears in an entry on the sixth day. 

'^ September 26: This is an uncomfortable time while the snow 
is yet too soft for house-building and the temperature nevertheless 
too low for comfort in a tent. My ink is frozen and I had thought 
to make no entries except in my pocket notebook until I could 
write with ink again. But the time is getting too long. I shall 
make entries for September 21st to 25th later, however, as time 
presses. 

"CasteFs complete failure is now too unfortunately clear.* 

* This statement and one or two other sentences from the diary entry of 
September 26th are reproduced here not as facts but to show a state of mind 
at the time of writing. It will appear later that Castel had not failed in 
any sense for which he could be criticized, and that both he and every one 
else in Melville Island had worked hard and faithfully and been successful 
far beyond what might have been expected, considering their situation and 
resources. 

In this book I am trying to present things not as they appear now but 
as they seemed then — with, of course, the exception of immutable facts, 
such as topography or temperature. It is in exploration as it is in life of 



556 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

We have searched the whole south coast of Borden Island without 
finding the depot he was to make for us and have been to Cape 
Murray without getting a message from him or the hunting party 
that was to camp there. This is setback the first in the work of 
next year and a serious one, for we can now have no winter base 
at Cape Murray. Castel was to cache for us boots, ammunition 
and other equipment, and failing to find these we are not in a 
position to put up meat. Besides, if we stay here the same men 
who have failed us now would probably fail us again and spend 
the winter where they can be most comfortable and least useful 
and leave us unsupported, so our work up here would come to noth- 
ing anyway. The best we can now do is to go to Melville Island 
and help to prepare everything there for the spring work. Noice 
volunteered to stay at Cape Murray to protect any meat we might 
put up while the sun lasts." 

I interrupt this quotation on finding it obscure in its reference 
to a very sportsmanlike offer made by Noice. He suggested that 
we might alj stay near Cape Murray for as long as the daylight 
lasted, putting up meat; then when the darkness came on he would 
stay there alone to protect the meat while we went to Melville Is- 
land to arrange cooperation with our people there and to send a 
sled up to him in January. Here I am able to continue the quota- 
tion: 

"I dare not accept this offer, for we may possibly find condi- 
tions so bad in Melville Island that it would be difficult to send 
a sled back to him. We are therefore all starting for Melville 
Island to-day. We started from a camp six miles north of Jenness 
Island and traveled southerly along the coast about seventeen 
miles. Fog on the land prevented hunting." 

On the way south across the ice towards Melville Island we 
made tea for the first time in months. Travelers in polar regions 
and campers in the "Great North Woods," as the sportsmen's 
magazines have it, have said a great deal about the exhilarating 
effect of tea. Some of these writers call it the most desirable of 
luxuries while others consider it a necessity. On our ships in 
winter quarters and on sledge trips near a base camp most of the 
men, including myself, drink quantities of tea, but with the ex- 
tamer environments, that the moods of yesterday are difficult to enter into 
to-day. My mind has now a very different picture of the expedition from 
what I find in my diaries. I have assumed that the reader would be interested 
in the feelings and outlook he might have shared had he been with us, 
rather than in direct facts as they appear now that time has settled uncertain- 
ties and reversed contemporary judgments. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 557 

ception of one or two Eskimos we have never had in cur advance 
parties any men so fond of it that they did not soon conclude 
that making it was more bother than it was worth. 

Fuel spent on heating tea is wasted when in boiling meat you 
have as an inevitable by-product a broth that is an excellent drink. 
If you put on the stove a potful of ice after the meat is boiled 
and turn it into water and the water into tea, the primus or what- 
ever cooking device you have uses most of its heat for producing 
temperature changes in the ice and water and not in the room, 
and whatever heat escapes from the tea does so in the form of 
steam, which is a disagreeable method of heating. Our white men 
have been agreed that if the stove was to be burned after the meat 
had been cooked it was better to burn it without any pot above to 
absorb the heat, thus getting full warmth and dryness in tent or 
snowhouse. We have always taken a certain amount of tea on 
our trips, but from this our longest trip we brought back half of 
what we started with. Those who have always used tea will, of 
course, always remain convinced that no sensible camper or traveler 
would do without it, but we feel differently. 

The journey south from Borden Island towards Melville Island 
was an anxious one. Our progress had been slow since leaving 
Lougheed Island and uncomfortable, for even now that the tem- 
perature had begun to drop well below zero we were still com- 
pelled to use the tent, having met with not a single snowdrift 
hard enough for house building. The hunt over Borden Island had 
given more knowledge of the country than game, for even when 
caribou cannot be seen through the snow or fog at three hundred 
yards, rocky outcrops are visible and the grass when you kick 
the snow away. We had started from Lougheed Island with sev- 
eral hundred pounds of dried meat and caribou fat. We finished the 
last of the dried meat on Borden Island near Jenness Island, and 
had now a little of the Lougheed Island fat and about half the 
meat of the four caribou killed near Jenness Island. 

Then we were all depressed through not finding CasteFs ex- 
pected depot or Natkusiak's party at Cape Murray. These things 
had their worst effect in inclining us to think that all sorts of 
mishaps and miscarriages had occurred and that not only were 
prospects for next spring considerably darkened but the situation 
might be bad in Melville Island. We even talked of the possibility 
of finding nobody there, although it was difficult to assign any rea- 
son for thinking so remarkable a thing could happen. 

In these high latitudes darkness comes on with giant strides 



558 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

when once the equinox is passed. It appears to come even faster 
than the rapid retreat of the sun justifies, for this and the early 
summer are the seasons of the heaviest precipitation. The total 
precipitation in the part of the Arctic where we were now would 
probably amount to less than eight inches of water in a year, or 
less than that of any part of the temperate or torrid zones that 
is not a desert. But it comes in the form of fog, fine mist and snow 
and manages to fill the air continuously for days and even weeks. 
We touched on the way at Emerald Isle, which is as thickly covered 
with vegetation as the name given it by McClintock implies, and 
I hunted overland while the sledge followed the east coast, but no 
game could be seen through the continual snowstorm. In following 
the beach the men strangely happened on a seal — strangely because 
seals, though they live in the water and should not mind getting 
wet, do not usually expose themselves either to rain or snow. 
Charlie tried shooting at eighty yards and missed, which was un- 
usual for him. He said it was due to the excitement of realizing 
how much depended on the shot, for we were out of food and fuel 
and he knew that my chances of getting game in the interior of 
the island were small on account of the storm. 

As the days got shorter and darker the snow on the ice be- 
came deeper and softer and progress slower and more slow. We 
made as little as seven miles and a half in a long day of work that 
was hard not only for the dogs but for the men who pulled on the 
sled to help them. The load was heavy, six feet high with Loug- 
heed Island caribou skins, for we thought it possible that the sum- 
mer hunt in Melville Island, though we did not conceive that it 
could have failed of ovibos, might easily have failed in caribou 
killed at the right season for clothing. For their bulk the skins 
were not heavy, but neither is hay and it is possible to have a big 
load of either. On a sled no more than twenty-six inches wide a 
load five or six feet high is topheavy and inclined to upset. 

After taking seven days for the crossing instead of three we 
came in sight of Melville Island near Cleverly Point the after- 
noon of October 2nd. We saw it only for a few minutes through 
a temporary cessation of snowfall but long enough to choose a 
place for the camp. The sleds would head that way but I took a 
course somewhat more to the right so as to hunt over the corner 
of land well back of the cape. It cleared after sundown and I 
could see a band of eight ovibos about eight miles southwest of 
our prospective camp. They were too far away to reach before 
dark and I did not worry about finding them to-morrow, for a 



The friendly arctic 559 

farmer's cow is as likely to break through a stone fence and get 
lost as a band of ovibos to travel beyond reach during a single 
night. 

My recollection is that we had finished our lean meat a day or 
two before and had been eating remnants of caribou fat brought 
from Lougheed Island. The diary merely records that for the last 
two or three days the dogs had eaten forty of their sealskin boots, 
some new and others in which they had worn holes on the needle 
ice in the summer. They had also eaten several pairs of our 
worn-out sealskin water boots. We had been taking them home 
for new soles but now sacrificed the uppers rather than let the 
dogs get too thin. 

We have so often come to our last meal in the uncertain lands 
where ovibos are absent that an empty larder did not worry us in 
Melville Island, especially with a herd in sight. I don't think it 
would have worried us much if I had not seen the herd, for even in 
a snowstorm an ovibos can be seen three or four times as far as a 
caribou and when seen never escapes. A caribou track may lead 
you on for tens of miles, while polar cattle do not move ordinarily 
more than a few hundred yards in a week and any trail, no matter 
how old, will soon lead to the herd. 

On my way home in the evening I had seen a bay that ran into 
the land not far from where the cattle were grazing. The next 
morning the men moved camp to that bay and came inland with 
a light sledge for fetching the meat, while I went ahead and killed 
a bull and an old cow. I saw a second band (fourteen) but did 
not bother them. 

A little later will be given a full description of the habits of 
ovibos and our methods of killing them, but now that I have 
thought of it I cannot resist saying that the word "sport" has a 
curious meaning when applied to killing them. I have heard of 
long journeys being made and even of ships being outfitted for 
the purpose of "hunting" ovibos. There may be much to say for 
the pleasures and even the adventures of the journey itself, but 
as for the "hunting" I would suggest that equally good "sport" 
could be secured with far less trouble and expense by paying some 
farmer for the permission of going into his pasture and killing his 
cows. I can conceive of accidents happening in ovibos killing and 
I have read stories, of the truth of which I have not the slightest 
doubt, showing that when conditions are just right, or rather just 
wrong, dogs and even men may be in some danger from them. 
Sverdrup tells of a team of dogs that dragged the sled to which 



560 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

they were attached into the center of a herd and how the dogs and 
some of the men were uncomfortably situated as a consequence. 
But I know from experience in both places, and so must every 
one else who shares it, that cowboys on the large ranges of twenty 
and thirty years ago were frequently in more danger from half- 
wild "domestic" cattle than any of our party have ever been from 
ovibos. 

The day after killing the bull and cow we remained in camp to 
rest the dogs and repair our snowshoes. The going was passable 
along the coast but for hunting parallel to the sled's course inland 
it was difficult to keep up unless you had snowshoes, for you sank 
to the knee at every step. 

I have explained elsev/here how caribou meat is never tough 
because caribou never get old. Just as the domestic calf can run 
faster than the cow, so can fawns, and the yearlings run faster than 
the older animals, and year by year their speed lessens. It is al- 
ways the old animals that lag behind when the band is fleeing from 
wolves, and probably where wolves are numerous few caribou live 
to be more than from five to seven years old. But it is otherwise 
with ovibos, except as newborn calves or single stragglers from 
the herd. The older they are the more powerful and the more 
difficult to wound through the thickness of hide and hair and wool. 
Their safety from wolves increases as they get older up to the 
point of actual decrepitude when they lose their instinct of follow- 
ing the herd and allow themselves to be surrounded and killed. 
It follows that big animals such as the ones I had killed are tough. 
The bull was in beautiful condition, giving fifty or sixty pounds 
of clear fat from the outside of his carcass, chiefly from the neck 
and back, and ten or fifteen pounds of intestinal and kidney fat. 
The cow was in good condition although less fat, and the meat of 
both was excellent in flavor. 

Before we landed on Lougheed Island we had been saving 
about three-quarters of a gallon of kerosene, doing our cooking 
mainly with caribou fat up to the point of finding the huge drift 
log on Borden Island. This had been thoroughly rotten except 
some of the roots, but they had given fuel to take us nearly to 
Melville Island. Then for a few days we had cooked with kero- 
sene but now we turned to ovibos fat to save a quart of kerosene that 
still remained. We thought we might want it badly to burn for light 
in a lantern in case the Bear had not reached Melville Island. As 
an indoors light tallow and seal oil will do very well, but for signal 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 561 

purposes on a dark night we could not with our limited resources 
devise any means equal to a kerosene lantern. 

It was wonderful luck that on the evening of landing in Mel- 
ville Island we had enough clear weather to see the ovibos herd 
and the next morning enough to kill them, although after noting 
the topography in the evening I might have been able to find them 
even in a storm. But just afterward the weather became so thick 
that, although the men with the team were only a mile away and 
in full sight coming towards me, they got lost and half an hour 
later in a clear spell I saw them a mile to one side. I was just 
able to signal to them before the weather thickened again and by 
going to meet them and shouting was able to guide them to the 
kill. It was impenetrably thick the rest of the day and the day 
following, so that we talked a good deal about having secured 
the meat in the nick of time. 

While Charlie was mending snowshoes, October 4th [1916], I 
made a long diary entry of which the following is a part: 

'Tlans and worries are mixed badly in our minds just now. 
Really we can have no plans till we learn just what has gone 
wrong and how badly with the Bear and in Melville Island. We 
make new guesses each day of what will be wrong but they are in- 
fluenced by how we feel and vary so much in tone that they are 
not worth writing down. They range from assuming complete dis- 
aster due to natural causes, to complete inactivity due to human 
frailty. A thing suggested by Noice I sincerely hope may not be 
so — that Castel's party may have had sickness soon after leaving 
us and may be still in Isachsen Land. If that be so, we shall learn 
it in Melville Island so late it will be difficult to reach them in 
Isachsen Land till the sun comes back. If Natkusiak is the sick 
one or if both the others are sick, it might mean disaster. We 
should, of course, try to reach them but the difficulty would be to 
find them in the dark even after getting up to Isachsen Land." 



CHAPTER LIV 

WE DISCOVER PEOPLE AND A COAL MINE 

ON the 5th we started traveling southeast, the team following 
the coast and I hunting overland. Because of the toughness 
of the ovibos meat which we could well use for dog feed if 
we had something else, I shot three out of four caribou found about 
a mile from the beach, the team coming right up to the spot with 
the load and taking on the meat without the special trip inland. 

This day I saw again the ovibos herd which I had counted at 
fourteen two days before. They were now more scattered and I 
made out seventeen with a possibility of miOre. It is nearly always 
so in estimating herds at a distance. You put the number too low, 
and the lower the less your experience. You may estimate too 
high the caribou in a given area, such as Banks Island or in 
Canada north of the treeline, but I have never known any one 
who did not have a tendency to underestimate a herd actually 
in sight. 

On October 7th, "I left camp about ten A. M. and the others a 
half hour later. I hunted towards the Raglan Range . . . but 
failed to see any game and came down to the coast some five or six 
miles south of Cape Grassy at half-dark. Found a sled trail badly 
snowed up by a wind that blew for an hour about noon. Started 
following this south (assuming it was our sled trail) but soon noted 
that the footprints, although badly snowed over, showed by the 
turning out of the toes that the man was walking north. My 
suspicions once aroused, I soon verified this by a dog track on a 
hard snowdrift also going north. This was then not our trail. 
I next took it to be that of two men traveling light to look for us 
in Borden Island. Followed trail and found it turned west around 
Grassy, keeping near the land. Soon I saw a light, which proved 
that a camp other than ours was ahead, for we have been saving 
fat and have used no light as yet and a light would not show so 
clearly through our dark tent, anyway. When I got nearer a man 
came running to meet me. It was Natkusiak, apparently quite as 
glad to see me as I was him, which is saying much." 

562 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 563 

I should like to quote further (were it not too lengthy) my 
entry for that day for it shows better than I can now how over- 
joyed we were to get in touch with people and what a surprise it 
was to find them this far north. Having once ascertained that 
they were not at Cape Murray, we had not been expecting to find 
them this side of Liddon Gulf; most likely, we thought, they would 
be all gathered in the vicinity of the Bear which would be at 
Winter Harbor southeast from Liddon Gulf. 

The best news to reach me was the fire which was blazing in an 
open fireplace when I entered the comfortable ovibos-skin camp. 
They had discovered an excellent coal mine half a mile from the 
camp, good lignite, in inexhaustible quantity from our point of 
view, at least. 'This is better than a gold mine," says the diary. 
"Had I a wishing-cap I could not have wished for things more 
valuable to the expedition than coal on northwestern Melville 
Island convenient for our spring work." 

We got much news and in the main it was good. There was a 
report from Castel which Natkusiak supplemented. When they 
left us at Cape Isachsen they had made a course for the northwest 
corner of King Christian Island, but that northwest corner existed 
upon the map only and they found none of it. This puzzled Castel 
greatly, but the weather was thick and he thought he might have 
missed it. Turning west now towards where they thought our 
Borden Island lay, the party sighted land out of the fog which they 
took to be King Christian Island, either misplaced on the map or 
more extensive than there indicated. But it was really the north 
end of Lougheed Island and Castel was therefore its first dis- 
coverer. I should have given his name to the north cape of it had 
I not already placed that name on the fine bay which he discovered 
just west of Mercy Bay on Banks Island. If he had realized that 
the land was new he would have left our depot upon it, knowing 
that we should see it also and explore it, but as he took it to be 
King Christian Island he merely built a small cairn and left a 
message. This must have been on a little strip of coast that we 
never visited. He left this land after skirting the coast a few 
miles and after Natkusiak had killed some caribou, and expected 
to strike the southeast corner of our Borden Island, optimistically 
estimating that it would reach far enough east to intercept his di- 
rect course for Cape Richards. It did not clear till he got to that 
vicinity, but when it did he was unable to see Markham Island, 
which should have been as plain as Hamilton Island, found lying 
in its appointed place. As land is at this season black and con- 



564 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

spicuous against the white ice, it seems fairly certain that Mark- 
ham Island does not exist. Lieutenant Hamilton who reported 
it must have mistaken some dirty ice for land, a thing very easy 
to do. 

With Borden Island nowhere in sight, Castel concluded it would 
delay Natkusiak's Cape Murray plans too much to turn back 
and make the depot upon it, and he proceeded through Hecla 
Bay to Cape Fisher where he made a temporary depot, telling 
Natkusiak to pick up the things for us later on his way north. 
They then hurried south across Melville Island to Storkerson's 
camp. They had expected to find it near the head of Liddon Gulf 
but had to look for it forty or fifty miles farther, for it was, in 
fact, near Cape Ross. 

Storkerson lost no time in outfitting Natkusiak's party and they 
started at once for Cape Murray. But it was June and traveling 
conditions had become bad. The fifteen miles across the isthmus 
between Liddon Gulf and Hecla Bay were especially hard, for the 
ground was bare and the load had to be divided and relayed. In 
Hecla Bay the ice was even worse, but things did not go badly 
till they got to Cape Fisher and picked up our depot. They also 
took on too much ovibos meat, making the common mistake of 
forgetting that "the Lord will provide." From Natkusiak's ac- 
count they must have had from twelve to fifteen hundred pounds 
on one sled. When it is remembered that Peary, Sverdrup and 
northern explorers in general have considered six hundred pounds 
to be a big load, it is not strange that even our good sleds should 
be unequal to such a burden, and this was not one of the best. In 
crossing a water channel on the ice of Macormick Inlet it plunged 
off one bank to be jammed into the opposite one, and was broken 
beyond repair. There was nothing to do but spend the summer in 
the vicinity, which they had done. 

During the summer they killed over fifty ovibos, ten caribou 
and a few seals, and had accumulated some dried meat. Meantime 
they had been gradually working their way northward until they 
discovered a coal mine about five miles west of the tip of Cape 
Grassy and perhaps half a mile inland. It is a seam tilted on edge 
and outcrops in various places, but most conveniently for surface 
mining at the top of a hill on the bank of a small ravine. Besides 
coal it furnished a sort of pitch that on being lit with a match 
burned with a flame like that of sealing wax, with a very black 
smoke and an odor resembling that of asphalt. They were using 
this for kindling and also as chewing-gum. 



J 




Making Use of Ice Foot of Small Lake. Man has Stripped and Dog 
Lies in Ice Water on Account of Heat. 




'The Ground was Bare and the Load had to be Relayed." 
Sledging in Summer. 





Copper Eskimo Girls and Women. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 565 

It seems that Eskimos have always used chewing-gum. They 
got it from spruce trees or made it of seal blood in primitive times, 
and now take to the commercial variety of it more readily than 
to any other imported commodity. They no longer relish gum 
made of seal's blood and considered it a hardship that, although 
I had outfitted them with some commercial chewing gum when they 
left the Star, they had long ago run out. It sounds more like a joke 
than it really is to say that contentment with their situation in Mel- 
ville Island was materially increased when they discovered this 
gum by-product of their coal mine. 

The Eskimos had made a brave attempt to repair the sled and 
Eskimos are ingenious at such things beyond belief. But even so 
it was rickety. Nevertheless, the party had intended to start for 
Cape Murray in about a week. It would have been pleasant to 
find them there but it was easy to decide, sitting before the cheerful 
fire, that it was better now to have them spend the winter here and 
to make Cape Grassy the outfitting base for the coming spring. 

A report from Storkerson gave details of his last spring's work. 
He had been to the Bear to get his family, and had found every 
one there in good spirits and Captain Gonzales and his officers 
determined to bring the ship to us in the summer if they could. 
There had not been time for a trip to the northeast corner of 
Victoria Island to complete the survey begun the preceding fall 
and that work still lay ahead. As to Castel and Emiu, he had 
thought it best to send them to the Bear unless they specifically 
asked to stay in Melville Island, for he did not want to be trou- 
bled with men who were discontented for whatever reason. But 
both had asked to stay, volunteering to refrain from all complaints 
about the food and do their best to help. The last part of the 
promise, as Storkerson realized, was superfluous. They were ex- 
cellent men except for their inconvenient views as to a meat diet. 

A letter from Gonzales confirmed what Storkerson said about 
his intention to bring the ship to Melville Island. It was of a 
cheerful tone but contained no other important message. 

There was a report from Wilkins. It had been our understand- 
ing when we separated that if things looked well on the Bear he 
would be free to proceed to Bernard Harbor and go out with the 
Alaska. He now reported not only that he felt sure the Bear would 
do her best to come to Melville Island, but also that personal news 
from Australia made him especially anxious to get south. He had 
been able to get still and moving photographs of the Prince Albert 
Sound Eskimos who in the spring had been encamped in Prince of 



566 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Wales Straits. From other sources I learned that many of them had 
later visited the Bear and that everything in regard to them was 
going amicably. 

An expected piece of news was that a murder charge had been 
laid against me by the Eskimos of Prince Albert Sound. Kullak's 
wife, Neriyok, who according to her husband was expected to have 
a child before the middle of August, 1915, had had the child in 
January, 1916. A few weeks after that she had died, probably, 
as I interpret it, from the bursting of an internal tumor. But 
the Eskimos on the basis of their belief that having her live or die 
was optional with me, looked upon me as having murdered her. 
I had a letter from Palaiyak written in Eskimo assuring me that 
he had tried to explain to the people that I was not guilty and did 
not have the power of curing the woman even though I would. 
I took this letter with a grain of salt for, while Palaiyak was 
friendly enough to me, I know that his beliefs in magic and in 
the magical powers of white men, including myself, are such that 
he probably at least half agreed with the local people. 

For Wilkins to go down to Prince Albert Sound to photograph 
a community of which Kullak was a member and where there 
were many relatives of the dead Neriyok was a brave thing to do. 
He never lacked courage in my observation nor did he later in the 
war, as his decorations show, but I do not think he realized how 
close to the wind he was sailing on this occasion. Among primi- 
tive Eskimos blood revenge is not optional and does not depend 
on anger but is a duty as sacred as paying a dead man's debts 
is said to be among the Chinese. 

This particular group of Eskimos, however, apparently had the 
idea, of which I had never heard before, that property payment 
might take the place of ordinary repayment of life for life. Kul- 
lak, through Palaiyak and Mrs. Seymour, as they have both told 
me since, advanced the proposal that he would kill neither Wil- 
kins nor any member of our party, not even me, if he were pre- 
sented with a rifle with a considerable amount of ammunition. I 
had constantly refused to give a rifle to the Eskimos for reasons 
in their interest. The sooner they get rifles the sooner they will 
begin to kill ten caribou where they now kill one, with surfeit of 
food and skins where they now have merely enough, thus leading 
to the extermination of these animals or to driving them out of 
the district. The resulting hardship to the Eskimos ten or fifteen 
years from now would be far greater than if they should continue 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 567 

hunting with bows and arrows in moderation. Wilkins knew my 
feehng and refused the rifle. 

Now comes the part of the story where accounts differ. Prob- 
ably Palaiyak and Mrs. Seymour did not interpret accurately to 
Wilkins fearing that if Kullak's threats were exactly translated 
Wilkins might take a stubborn attitude which would result in an 
attempt to kill either him or some member of his party. After a 
struggle Kullak succeeded in taking a rifle away from Palaiyak. 
Later through the intervention of other members of the tribe 
Wilkins was paid for the rifle with a dog, but it was at best 
a forced sale. Palaiyak subsequently told me that Kullak had 
withdrawn his promise not to kill any relative of mine or member 
of my party upon being compelled to give a dog for the rifle, but 
he also said that nearly all the other members of the tribe had 
promised to see to it that Kullak would do no harm and had told 
Kullak impressively that if he tried to kill any one in our party 
they would forthwith kill him. 

We spent October 8th in talking and rejoicing, while the women 
set our clothing in order. It was especially our boots that needed 
fixing although they had held out wonderfully. There are few man- 
made articles more nearly perfect as to comfort and durability 
than the footgear of the Eskimos. The only thing to temper our 
rejoicing was that Charlie began to feel severe pain in one of his 
fingers, indicating the development of a felon. The following day 
we left the camp, and one week later met Storkerson, Castel, 
Lopez and Emiu with two sledges on the east side of Liddon Gulf 
north of Cape Hoppner. We should have traveled faster but for 
Charlie's suffering. He could not ride, for the jolting of the sled 
was more than he could bear, and had to walk slowly and step 
carefully so as not to jar his hand. 

There were so many things to learn from Storkerson that we 
camped immediately on meeting and began to review the summer. 
He had done his work well and had been adequately assisted by 
every member of his party. They had killed and converted into 
dried meat ninety ovibos, twenty-seven seals and two or three 
polar bears, and this meant a great deal of hard work. It is a 
big task, to begin with, to remove all the suitable meat from the 
skeleton and then slice it thin and spread it out on stones to dry. 
The meat would have dried much more rapidly hanging up, but 
there was nothing in Melville Island with which it could be kept 
off the ground except a few caribou antlers. Fogs and rains had 



568 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

been frequent and it had to be gathered in and covered with skins 
and then spread out when the sun came back. Wolves and foxes 
and bears were numerous, so that it had to be protected as well 
as dried, and nothing will adequately protect meat from bears 
except a man on guard. 

It was probably unfortunate that they began hunting in the 
spring near Cape Ross, for the country there is very rocky and 
it would have been more desirable for us to have a base farther 
north. But having once started they had to continue in the same 
locality, for the stores of meat could not easily be moved. For 
convenience they had killed entire herds, ranging usually from ten 
to thirty head. The killing of two or three bands soon accumulated 
so much meat near Cape Ross that moving much farther into the 
gulf was out of the question. Still they did move a little way, to 
Peddie Point where they had discovered a coal mine. It was not 
nearly so good as Natkusiak's at Cape Grassy for it was bituminous 
shale rather than coal. It burned well enough but when the fire 
went out there were left in the stove pieces of the shape and size 
of those put into it. All that had burned was the oil. 

When autumn came they had built a house of ovibos hides, with 
a main floor space of twelve by twenty-eight feet and an additional 
sleeping alcove about eight feet by eight. Out of tin cans they 
had made a stove and stovepipe and were very comfortable. It 
had been our intention to spend the winter in snowhouses lined 
with skins where we would have used seal blubber or ovibos tallow 
for fuel. Now that we had the coal to burn, the tallow would be 
used for candles, and the seal oil for food for men and dogs. 

There had been no sign of the Bear, but from the high land 
at Cape Ross they had seen the ocean to the south fairly open 
and believed the ship could have had no trouble in getting to 
Melville Island. Even Liddon Gulf had opened up this year. This 
was different from last year, as was evidenced by the ice we had 
traveled over the preceding spring. Every one in Storkerson's 
party felt certain that the Bear must be at Winter Harbor and 
this was the reason for the present journey. He said that in spite 
of their promise Castel and Emiu had begun to talk so much about 
the meat diet and had been so sure that they could get to the Bear 
by merely going to Winter Harbor, that he had eventually yielded 
and was now taking them there. But for this pressure, he would 
have hauled to the main camp three or four depots of meat which 
had not yet been brought in. There was much dried meat at Cape 
Ross and a good deal half-way between there and the camp, and 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 569 

the fresh meat of about sixty caribou inland. The caribou meat 
seemed fairly safe from bears because of not being close to the 
coast, but the dried meat on the coast was in obvious danger. 

I talked with Emiu and Castel about their wish to go to the 
Bear and found that while Castel's desire was unchanged, Emiu 
now said he would prefer to spend the winter with us in Liddon 
Gulf, for I told him that even if the Bear were at Winter Harbor 
I should not spend much time there. Emiu said that if he might 
be allowed to bring back some sardines and canned salmon from 
the Bear and possibly some sugar for tea, he would really prefer 
to spend the winter in a hunting camp. He said that when he 
left me at Isachsen in the spring he had been longing very intensely 
for "good grub" but' that he was now all over it except that he han- 
kered for tinned sardines. 

We have said that Emiu enjoyed nothing so much as dashing 
around at top speed with a big team of fast dogs and an empty 
sled in the fashion of the dog racers around Nome, and that a big 
part of his usefulness was in carrying messages from one party 
to another. In Alaska where you can buy dog feed at road houses 
and where business men have to travel fast because of the value 
of time, speed driving is useful, but where the ice is as rough as 
in most places in the far North you cannot drive fast with a loaded 
sled without breaking it, which merely follows from the law that 
the shock of impact of a moving body varies with the square of 
the velocity. If you double the speed you fourfold the strain upon 
a loaded sled in rough going, and if you fourfold the speed you 
multiply the strain sixteen times. This together with the difficulty 
in securing dog feed for large teams makes it plain that the only 
thing light enough to be profitably transferred in the North by 
a fast dog team is information. If Emiu wanted to stay at the ship 
that usefulness would disappear. He had been a cabin boy on the 
Bear when I purchased her and his chief occupation dish-washing. 
If he went back to the ship he would have to take his old job. 
When I asked him whether he would prefer to eat good grub off 
plates which he would have to wash or to drive dogs and eat meat 
without dishes, his choice was made and he decided to stay by 
his dog team and live in the camps. 

I now decided that Storkerson, proceeding to Winter Harbor 
with one of his two teams, should be accompanied by Castel, whom 
he would leave at the Bear, and Emiu, whom he would bring back. 
It had been his intention if he did not find the Bear to continue 
a day or two beyond to Dealy Island and investigate the depot 



570 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

left by Kellett and McClintock in 1853. Partly he had desired to 
find the groceries that would make some of his men more con- 
tented, but partly he wanted to ascertain what iron or other ma- 
terial for repairing sledges he might find in this depot. So far 
as food was concerned he and I agreed that hauling it from Dealy 
Island to Liddon Gulf would be a nuisance, but iron and hard wood 
were undeniably needed, for all but our very best sledges wanted 
repairing. I authorized him therefore to go on to Dealy Island if 
the Bear were not found. He carried a letter of instructions to 
Captain Gonzales to arrange for cooperation between our hunting 
parties and the ship's crew. 

Lopez and the other team I would take with me to the base 
camp and set them to work hauling home the meat lest it be stolen 
by bears, if it were not already gone. We arrived at Storkerson's 
base camp October 16th, which we found very homelike under the 
management of Mrs. Storkerson and Mrs. Lopez. During the sum- 
mer they had done their full share in helping to dry meat and now 
they were busy making warm winter clothing and waterproof sum- 
mer boots without which our work would be difficult and comfort 
impossible. 



CHAPTER LV 

WE FIND BERNIER's DEPOT 

WE had long since lost track of the week days, but the newly- 
Christianized Eskimos keep careful watch on Sundays, 
most of them for purely religious reasons but a few for 
reasons which make the forty- four-hour week a burning economic 
and political question farther south. They told me now that October 
17th was Sunday, and so we kept it as a day of rest and rejoicing and 
a sort of celebration. A good part of many a celebration is brag and 
vainglory and we occupied the day in congratulating ourselves on 
our fortunate winter bases, the success and thoroughness of Stor- 
kerson's summer work, and the new triumph of our method of 
"living off the country," which had enabled us to complete a jour- 
ney of two hundred and twelve days as measured from Natkusiak's 
hunting camp at Cape Alfred, left March 10th, to our arrival at 
his hunting camp at Cape Grassy, reached October 7th. The trip 
can be made to look a little longer if we figure it from our ship 
base at the North Star from March 2nd to the return to Storker- 
son's camp and cessation of travel October 16, 1916, two hundred 
and twenty-nine days or seven months and nineteen days. 

We had not missed a meal nor had our dogs though there were 
three or four occasions when they had to sup on old boots or skins. 
Still I rem.ember distinctly that whenever I saw them eat on these 
occasions they ate with a relish, and the few pounds of fat they 
had lost crossing from Borden Island to Melville Island they had 
picked up since we killed the first ovibos and were now as fat 
as ever. Of the eight we had when we separated from Cas- 
tel, seven had arrived home safe and we had lost only poor 
Jack. There had been discomfort at times, especially in the early 
summer before we landed on Lougheed Island, and in late September 
and early October when our clothes were difficult to keep dry be- 
cause of the hoar frost in the tent, which we had to use as the snow 
had not hardened enough for house-building. But we all three 
agreed that we would not mind starting out to-morrow for a simi- 
lar trip, if to-morrow had been after New Year's with increasing 
light instead of at the beginning of darkness as now. 

571 



572 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

It seems that schools are much the same in Seattle or in Copen- 
hagen, and Charlie and Noice laughed now at what they had learned 
in geographies and read in "adventure stories" about the "barren," 
"silent," and "frozen" north, which they had found so hospitable 
and friendly. I wonder if it pays to keep up the bogey of the polar 
regions, as we do Santa Claus? I have been uncomfortably cold 
in the North but I have been more uncomfortably hot in the 
South. I have even been more uncomfortably hot in the North 
than uncomfortably cold — during my summer on the arctic circle 
near the Coppermine River in 1910, when we had day after day 
that ranged from above ninety in the afternoon to above seventy 
during the night that was no night because the sun still beat down 
upon us. People do freeze to death in the North but always through 
some accident or carelessness; people do die of sunstroke in the 
South, which could presumably be prevented. But germs spread 
by heat are more menacing and we have no means of excluding 
heat from our houses comparable with our method of excluding 
cold and generating artificial warmth. And especially is there 
no portable invention for keeping one comfortably cool as clothes 
keep one warm in the North if rightly made, no matter what the 
temperature. At this winter camp of Storkerson's I used to warm 
the mercury before going out to take a star observation at night. 
It usually froze before the observation was over, which did not 
entirely prevent results for if properly placed the mercury freezes 
level. But no matter how solid it froze I lay beside it comfortably 
warm in my furs, even when I had to wait half an hour for the 
star to arrive at the point where the sextant was set. I had trouble 
in keeping the lenses from clouding with my breath, which was 
only a nuisance. 

How helpful it was to have worked out a new and comfortable 
attitude towards the North can be seen better the more you 
read of the difficulties encountered by those who assumed it to be 
hostile. Sverdrup came out of his four years on the Nansen ex- 
peditions thinking the polar regions by nature hostile to comfort, 
but he got nearly over the idea during the four years he spent on 
EUesmere Island, though never completely enough to make his 
work easy. He really knew how rich the North was in vegetation 
and in animal life, and no book gives more convincing evidence 
of this than the two volumes of his "New Land." Yet he does 
not appear to have trusted his own deductions, for he always carried 
huge quantities of food and never extended his journey beyond 
the limit for which these sufficed, except that the trips were length- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 573 

ened through the better health and spirits of men and dogs brought 
about by the fresh meat. His longest trip, that from winter quarters 
in 1900 on the south shore of Jones Sound to latitude 81 on the 
west side of Axel Heiberg Island, was, according to his own sum- 
mary, lengthened out by only thirteen days through the use of game. 

It does not seem reasonable to me, but I have heard it objected 
to my method that it is too destructive of the game in the country 
traversed. You might almost as well complain if fishermen were 
to choose to live on their voyages entirely on fish. When tens 
of thousands of seals are killed annually for their skins and thou- 
sands of walrus for their ivory, it might not seem unreasonable to 
allow a polar expedition to kill just enough seals or caribou or 
ovibos to support life in the exploration of lands the very existence 
of which was unknown before. Moreover, our method is eco- 
nomical of game because we use few dogs. On his longest journey 
Sverdrup had over twenty dogs in his advance party where we had 
seven, and although he does not say how many were used al- 
together, he appears to have had two or three times that many, with 
the result that it was necessary to kill as many animals to lengthen 
his journeys by fifteen or twenty per cent, as to lengthen our jour- 
neys by several hundred per cent. Our supply bases were in Banks 
and Victoria Islands and, from that point of view, we were still on 
a journey not finished though we had made camp for the winter. 
The total length of the journey from supply base to supply base 
proved to be more than a year and five months, where four months 
would have been its maximum length had we depended solely on 
provisions hauled along. 

There are also people who resent the noble sport of polar ex- 
ploration being made too easy. It is as if one were to catch salmon 
with some unlawfully simple tackle. But I have never been able 
to see why exploration should be primarily a sport, or any sound 
reason for retaining artificial difficulties just so as to leave one 
part of the world where the imagination may, unhandicapped by 
facts, suggest heroic stories and movie plays. In the past we have 
scared people away from it and kept secret the knowledge of its 
friendliness to whoever has been willing to adapt himself to it, mak- 
ing it the exclusive property of the few. If we insist on the North 
remaining imknown, it will be necessary to make it an international 
reserve, a northern Thibet, a Forbidden Land by universal agree- 
ment and prevent any one from going there, or at least from 
staying so long that he learns to like it. 

Even without recourse to Malthusian theories, whoever will 



574 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

look can see from the statistics of the last hundred years that 
unless the growth of population is checked through war or pesti- 
lence or birth control it will not be long till we need the North for 
those to live in it who like it, and for the production of that sort 
of food for the world's consumption to which its natural conditions 
are adapted. To take but one item: The tens of thousands of 
wolves that live on caribou do not kill merely enough for them- 
selves to eat; they leave each carcass after a single gorging to be 
picked clean by wolverines and foxes, ravens and gulls. With the 
constant tendency in the tropical and temperate zones to convert 
cattle and sheep ranges into cereal farms and orchards, it will not 
be long, if we desire to continue our habit of living in part on 
meat, before it will be a real world necessity that the vegetation 
of the North shall be converted into meat that shall be used for food 
in the centers of population and not for the exclusive delectation 
of wolves, wolverines, foxes and ravens. 

We talked much of such things as these, not only on our first 
day at Storkerson's camp but in its comfort and abundance dur- 
ing the whole winter. And we conceived there plans for con- 
servation of the food resources of the North which have since 
been laid before the Canadian Government and which are sure to 
be carried out because the logic of conditions and events will be 
irresistible. In the geographic books of seventy-five years ago 
and less, the Great American Desert covered a large part of the 
western United States. There are only little desert spots left now, 
and these are getting smaller under the advance of knowledge and 
skill in irrigation, dry farming and the like. The "Frozen North" 
is now large upon our maps, but during the next fifty years most 
of it will go the way of the Great American Desert, by the same 
removal of ignorance from men's minds. The more stubborn areas 
will continue to shrink slowly before an advancing technique of 
food production and home-building just as the small desert parts 
of the United States are now shrinking before irrigation and dry 
farming. 

If any men deserved rest Charlie and Noice did now, not be- 
cause they were tired, for none of us were that, but because they 
had been looking forward to a leisure time when they could read 
a few books and write a bit and in a general way take it easy. 
This was now impossible. Charlie stayed indoors but only because 
of his painful finger, while Noice and Lopez had to start next day 
hauling in the dried meat. At the nearest depot, about eight miles 
southwest, they found a polar bear in residence. He had evidently 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 575 

been there for at least a week and Lopez estimated that he had 
eaten the dried meat of seventeen out of twenty-seven seals. Evi- 
dently in common with the rest of us he preferred the food he was 
used to, for he had not touched the ovibos meat. They killed the 
bear but his carcass was small pay for our loss. We wanted the 
dried meat for sledge provisions during the dark and half-dark 
part of the winter and early spring, whereas fresh meat as good 
as his was easy enough to get. However, there still remained about 
twenty- four hundred pounds of dried meat which was safely home 
in two days. 

We now felt certain that the dried meat depot at Cape Ross 
would be gone, for bears are more likely to touch at a headland 
than to come into a bay as this one had done. But the Cape Ross 
depot was high on a cliff while the nearer one had been on the 
beach, and either this or luck preserved it for us, for it was found 
all safe, about twelve hundred, pounds. 

We now had another illustration of the food prejudices of men 
and dogs and, in this case, of wolves, which are after all but a 
sort of dog. Although the dried meat had been hauled home from 
the near depot, the meat of the bear had been left temporarily as 
of less consequence than the dried meat, and several days passed 
befor the men could go to fetch it. They found that a number of 
wolves — perhaps six, for we saw a band of that size about that 
time — had been around the depot during the nights and had dug 
up and gnawed to pieces meatless bones of ovibos and had eaten 
scraps of dry hide. But they had not touched the bear, either 
the meat or the fat. That these wolves could not under ordinary 
circumstances kill ovibos was shown by the fact that a medium- 
sized herd was grazing in the vicinity and tracks showed that the 
wolves had both seen and smelt the herd without making any at- 
tempt upon it. Still, through the occasional killing of a stray calf 
or a sickly old animal they were familiar with ovibos meat and 
devoured what had the familiar taste and smell. Moreover, all 
rotten meat smells much alike, and doubtless these bones had a 
putrid smell, one familiar to the wolves and relished. It is prob- 
able they cannot kill a bear and that they never try. Bear meat 
therefore was new in their experience and they turned up their 
noses at it. 

The dried meat was all home and the depots of fresh caribou 
meat in the interior seemed reasonably safe, for they were covered 
with rocks against wolves, and bears are less likely to be found 
inland than on the coast. We had plenty of evidence of the num- 



376 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ber of wolves about. I have always thought that the howling 
of wolves on a quiet, starlit night was the most romantic sort of 
music. During the winter in Melville Island we could stand listen- 
ing outside the camp for hours to the howling of a nearby pack 
and the replies of others from a distance. Occasionally they came 
so close that we could see them in the starlight when the moon 
was below the horizon. On clear, moonlit nights they had the 
wisdom to keep away, for wolves as we have found them are un- 
cannily careful. 

October 25th Storkerson's party got back — all of them, for 
they had not found the Bear. They had not needed to go to the 
cache at Dealy Island for they had found a depot made in 1910 
by Captain Bernier at Winter Harbor. It seems strange that 
we did not know about this depot. I dined with Captain Bernier 
in 1908 just before my second expedition, and he told me of de- 
pots he had made and of his intention to go North again. I think 
that in Ottawa in 1913 I must have heard some mention of a depot 
at Winter Harbor but if so I nearly forgot it. Bernier's books and 
reports were all on the Karluk and lost. But Storkerson now re- 
minded me that in the summer of 1914 when we were waiting for 
the Star on northern Banks Island I had told him and Ole that 
I thought there was a depot at Winter Harbor and had discussed 
going there in case the Star did not come. We had decided that 
my vague notion was not to be relied on, and also that the depot 
at Dealy Island, being more than sixty years old, was too ancient 
to be relied on either. Anyway, the arrival of the Sachs had taken 
these considerations out of our minds until Storkerson recalled 
them when, some miles from Winter Harbor, they saw through 
their glasses a frame house very much of the type you find among 
new settlers on the western prairies of Canada. 

The house proved to contain four and a half tons of food of 
which there follows a complete list as copied from the record left 
by Captain Bernier: Pilot bread, 1,000 lbs.; flour, 1,000 lbs.; sugar, 
436 lbs.; coffee, 80 lbs.; tea, 112 lbs.; salt pork, 800 lbs.; baking 
powder, 12 lbs.; condensed milk, 48 lbs.; desiccated carrots, 50 
lbs.; mustard, 12 lbs.; pepper, 2 lbs.; salt^ 50 lbs.; rolled oats, 100 
lbs.; smoking tobacco, 10 lbs.; chewing tobacco, 21 lbs.; Bovril, 
240 lbs. ; pemmican, 360 lbs. ; butter, 60 lbs. ; soap, 10 lbs. ; matches, 
1 gross packages; kerosene, 1 barrel; desiccated potatoes, 10 lbs.; 
honey, 48 lbs.; peas, 50 lbs.; ginger, 10 lbs.; macaroni, 25 lbs.; 
beans, 50 lbs.; 1 shotgun with 500 rounds; 1 Ross rifle with 1,000 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 577 

rounds; 1 lantern; 6 lantern globes; 12 wicks; 10 gal. fuel alcohol; 
1 gasoline stove; 1 boat, complete; 2 sledges. 

Storkerson found in addition 50 lbs. popcorn, 2 axes, 1 shovel, 
1 pickaxe, 1 horse wagon, 1 steam cooker, 103 yards No. 5 canvas, 
1 keg 6-penny nails, 1 broom, and a small medicine chest. There 
was also the following record: 

"C. G. S. Arctic, 
1st September, 1910. 
"To whom it May Concern: 

"We finish this day our little house covering this cache, and expect 
to sail to-morrow morning for our destination. 

"The wind is strong from the North and the ice is going fast to 
the south. The harbor is clear of ice, and part of the straits. 

"All hands are well. 

"Whoever touches this cache has to inform the Hon. Minister of 
Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa, Canada, as soon as he can. 

"This cache is intended only for shipwrecked crews in case of 
bare necessity. 

"Given under my hand this day, the first day of September, Nine- 
teen Hundred and Ten. 

(Signed) "J. E. BERNIER, 

"Commander." 

I quote from my diary the following comment: "Seeing the pro- 
vision of this document is such, we shall have to assume the posi- 
tion of shipwrecked men, for some of the things (kerosene, canvas, 
sleds, gun and ammunition) we need; and the other things some 
of us think we need. It would not be possible now for me to keep 
our tribe from these fleshpots without causing discontent that 
would hamper our work. 

"The lantern and globes are especially a godsend — ^with the 
oil. Now we can travel at night even when there is neither moon 
nor star, which would have been difficult nearly to impossibility 
otherwise." 

From the depot Storkerson had brought the following articles 
across the isthmus to Liddon Gulf, caching most of them there with 
intent of taking them later up to Cape Grassy: Flour, 250 lbs. 
kerosene, 12 gallons; milk, 18 cans; dried vegetables, 20 lbs. 
sugar, 100 lbs.; pilot bread, 125 lbs.; coffee, 40 lbs.; jam, 20 lbs. 
butter, 20 lbs.; potatoes, 30 lbs.; 1 Ross rifle and 200 cartridges 
10 fathoms of rope; 8 feet of boards; smoking tobacco, 3 lbs. 
chewing tobacco, 4 lbs. ; pepper, 2 lbs. ; salt, 5 lbs. ; baking powder, 
4 lbs.; pemmican, 10 lbs.; and Bovril, 10 lbs. 

This is the list as given me by Storkerson at the time. It can 



578 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

be seen from discrepancies between it and Bernier's list supple- 
mented by Storkerson's original statement that we never had a cor- 
rect inventory of everything found in the depot. For instance, 
neither Storkerson nor Bernier mentions that there was jam, and 
yet Storkerson mentions caching twenty pounds of it in Liddon 
Gulf. Still there were no important items beyond those mentioned 
either by Bernier or Storkerson. 

Storkerson and I were at first alone in thinking the discovery 
of this food cache a nuisance, but before winter was over nearly 
every one agreed with us. Storkerson said that before this, while 
they had nothing to eat but ovibos meat and nothing to drink 
but the broth, there were only two of the men who kicked and 
even with them it was largely a matter of form. But now we had 
all the troubles of a boarding house. My diary on October 31st 
tells it thus: 

"Discontent and bickerings have resulted from finding the food 
at Winter Harbor. Before, there was plenty of meat and there 
was nothing else. There were only one or two men who com- 
plained and the rest resented their complaining. Now there are 
various foods besides meat. This increases greatly the time of 
cooking and the fuel consumption (making the house uncomfort- 
ably hot). Where formerly one pot of meat furnished soup for 
drink as well, it now furnishes only meat, and coffee must be 
boiled in addition. These delays several of the men, including 
myself, find annoying in the morning when there is work to do, and 
the women object to getting up earlier to do the added cooking. 
Then some want to save such things as butter. Because they are 
fond of them they want to make them last ; others because they are 
fond of them want to eat them up at will. While two of the men 
have a passion for butter that leads to gluttony, one of them has 
a reverence for it that approaches worship. Some want coffee 
every meal; some want it occasionally "for a change" though they 
prefer tea in general; some are fond of it but want it only once a 
day so it may last a long time; others are fond of it and want 
it every meal. No one but Castel cares much for potatoes but 
when I wanted to give him more than his share of them nearly 
everybody else objected. 

"The kerosene, lantern and hardwood are useful. I wish Ber- 
nier had left more of such things and no grub." 

The potato subject related to an arrangement for placing Castel 
in charge of the outfitting base at Cape Grassy, for, although the 
Eskimos up there had their excellent qualities, I knew them to be 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 579 

a little lackadaisical in providing against the future. No part of 
their new Christian knowledge is more welcome to them and less 
necessary than the behest from the Sermon on the Mount, "Take 
ye no heed for the morrow." They have not the proverb but their 
whole lives are an exemplification of the belief that "The Lord will 
provide." In the Arctic He usually does provide for each day 
according to its needs; but we wanted to get a few days ahead so 
as to have a good start in the spring. Now that Castel was to be 
in command of his own detachment I wanted to outfit him as much 
in accordance with his tastes as possible, hence my idea of giving 
him all the potatoes we had. In general I wanted to take to 
Grassy most of the groceries from the Bernier cache, intending to 
station there the few men who preferred groceries to meat. When 
groceries were available there was, of course, no reason why who- 
ever wanted to live on flour and biscuit and beans should not do so, 
providing they ate enough fresh meat along with these things to 
prevent scurvy. 

I was once nearly a vegetarian, not by principle but by taste. 
The reason I prefer meat in the North is that caribou herds are 
more numerous than restaurants or groceries. But now we had a 
grocery store at Winter Harbor and there seemed no reason why 
we should not eat hard bread and honey as well as dried meat, for 
the same government that had sustained Bernier 's expedition was 
sustaining ours, and knowing well the kindheartedness of Bernier 
himself, I felt sure that even he would be willing to look upon our 
men in their present state of desire as coming within the meaning 
of the "shipwrecked crews" mentioned in his proclamation. 

And in a way it was shipwreck, since our ship had not come and 
this would normally mean that she had been wrecked. I could 
well imagine under what headlines the news of our situation might 
have been printed if some one had brought it to the yellow jour- 
nals. In high capitals (red in some cases) it would have been 
something like this: "DARKNESS OF ARCTIC NIGHT DE- 
SCENDS UPON HELPLESS PARTY MAROONED ON MEL- 
VILLE ISLAND." Bernier's four and a half tons of food, when 
you considered what sort of food it was, would certainly not feed 
seventeen of us till we could be rescued in the spring, even should 
we begin with rations and end by killing and eating all our dogs. 

Public sympathy can easily be stirred over the wrong situa- 
tions. In 1897 several United States whaling ships were held in 
the ice at Point Barrow, and the owners in New Bedford and San 
Francisco considered that the ships were well provisioned and in 



580 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

no danger. But this was recognized as merely the heartlessness 
of capitalists who did not care if scores of American citizens starved 
to death so long as it cost them nothing. There was a newspaper 
outcry from coast to coast, appeals for the poor imprisoned whalers 
and denunciations of the ship owners, and eventually Congress 
sent Lieutenant Jarvis and a special relief expedition driving rein- 
deer to Point Barrow. When the Coast Guard officials arrived 
some of the crews seemed on the verge of insubordination and pos- 
sibly the whaling officers might have had difficulty in controlling 
them. There was also danger of scurvy. But in this regard the 
value of the medical advice was probably overrated, for as every 
one now knows, the medical man of that day had no understanding 
of the fundamentals of scurvy and prescribed methods which were 
about as appropriate as the panacea of bleeding was a century 
earlier. 

But as for starvation, the crews were so near it that they had 
food to throw away, and actually did throw away tons of fresh 
meat which they could not transport when they sailed away in 
the spring. The facts are known to every whaler and traveler who 
has been on the north coast of Alaska but they have not been 
generally published, and Congress voted a medal to the ^'rescuers." 
It was as heroic an undertaking then as the carrying of mail is 
to-day to Point Barrow, and that is done three times a winter for 
the munificent pay of the American postal department. The coast 
the party traversed between Bering Straits and Point Barrow was 
settled then as now by Eskimos, except that there are two school 
houses now on the four hundred-mile stretch. But one thing done 
was creditable as a performance and led to good, although un- 
planned results. William T. Lopp drove the reindeer to Barrow 
under difficult conditions because reindeer driving was new to him 
and to the country. This drive was useless so far as rescuing any 
starving men was concerned and it was a pity that any of the ani- 
mals were killed to make a show of being used to relieve distress, 
for the remainder became the nucleus of the reindeer industry of 
northern Alaska which is now making the natives wealthy and 
Alaska a meat-exporting country. 

Despoiling the Arctic of its heroism is likely to be about as 
popular as taking candy from a child, and especially in Alaska 
which is poorer in hero tales than most other sections of the North. 
It could not well help being poor in them from the preponderance 
of quiet, competent, and unemotional men there, the whalers, trad- 
ers and pioneers in search of gold. But in towns such as Nome, and 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 581 

especially among those men in the towns who have little experience 
outside of them, I have found hero stories not only popular but 
believed in — even the one of "the Rescue of the Starving Whalers 
at Point Barrow." 

So I cite for my support — and do it gladly, for it invites atten- 
tion to a delightful and instructive book — Archdeacon Hudson 
Stuck's summary of the incident on page 236 of "A Winter Circuit 
of Our Arctic Coast" (New York, 1920). He is more apologetic 
than I, not entirely, I trust, through temperament but partly be- 
cause he made but one journey along the open north coast of Alaska 
and himself found it uncomfortable as compared with the sheltered 
forest trails of the Yukon valley where the thermometer may drop 
low but the wind seldom rises high. He comes to the conclusion 
that this so-called relief expedition was "creditable" but useless, so 
far at least as starvation was concerned: "It was evident that 
the stories of starvation were untrue (Mr. Brower tells me that 
he had warehouses full of frozen caribou carcasses) and indeed the 
condition of the deer (driven to Point Barrow by the "rescue" 
expedition) was such that they would not have afforded much food 
until they could be fattened. Yet the intent was praiseworthy." 

Mr. Brower (who was living at Barrow then and has been ever 
since) has told me that in addition to the storehouses full of meat 
there were hundreds and perhaps thousands of caribou carcasses 
scattered over the prairie in the vicinity that were allowed to rot or 
to be eaten by birds and beasts. And this is the uniform story of 
the men I have seen who were there, whether whaling captains or 
ship's officers, traders or Eskimos. 

It was my intention not to use any of the dried meat for man 
or dog during the winter beyond an occasional meal for the Es- 
kimos who are very fond of dried meat. Storkerson and I made 
as careful an estimate as we could of the amount of fresh meat 
eaten per day by our seventeen people at the two camps and about 
fifty dogs, and came to the conclusion that about forty or fifty 
more ovibos were needed to take us up to the time of starting for 
the ice trip, with some left over for the women who would be alone 
at home for a few weeks when all the men were getting the spring 
work started. There were several herds in the neighborhood. 
One of these appeared at a distance to have between thirty and 
forty animals in it. There were other herds nearer but as it is 
more convenient to kill a whole herd, we decided on this one. On 
October 26th Storkerson, Castel, Noice, Lopez and Emiu went out, 



582 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

prepared to stay away from the home camp one or two days to 
complete the skinning. 

The common Eskimo method of killing ovibos I have described. 
It is to set a few dogs on the herd to hold them in a defensive 
circle and then to stab the animals with spears. Latterly this 
method has been modified where rifles have come in and shooting 
now takes the place of the spearing, whereas in the old times the 
bow and arrow were occasionally used. The northern Indians who, 
to judge by my own experience and the accounts of Russell, Han- 
bury, Pike, Whitney and others, seem to understand the ovibos 
about as little as they do methods of living and traveling in the 
country which the ovibos inhabit, used dogs also. It is possible 
that their ill success in some of their hunts is due partly to some 
difference in habits between the ovibos of the mainland and those 
of the islands. 

I shot two ovibos as all we needed out of the fifteen or twenty 
seen during the spring of 1915. When Storkerson first went to Mel- 
ville Island early in the winter of 1916 he had with him Illun who 
had killed ovibos on the mainland. Apart from him there was no 
one in our various parties who had experience, except that Alingnak 
had seen them as a boy and heard much about how they were killed. 

It was due to this inexperience that there developed among us in 
Melville Island two distinct methods of killing ovibos. In Storker- 
son's party dogs were sometimes used but the essential idea was 
that the men formed a circle around the herd at fifty or a hundred 
yards. Rarely a herd would stampede away from them and dis- 
appear. They commenced shooting the biggest animals and went 
on down to the calves, but with our powerful rifles the same bullet 
frequently went through the body of more than one animal. How- 
ever, their anatomy is so well concealed by the tremendous mass 
of wool on the shoulders that most of the men did not soon learn 
how to hit the hearts, and the brain or spinal cord proved a rather 
small target. As a result, it commonly took five bullets or more 
per animal to kill the entire herd. The wounds were almost any- 
where in the body, and especially when the bullet had passed 
through the intestines it was hard to make a clean job of the 
butchering. 

This method was inferior to the one developed by Natkusiak's 
party at Cape Grassy. Natkusiak told me that it occurred to him 
one day to see how close he could get with safety, and that he got 
so close that he could touch the heads of the animals with the end 
of his rifle. If they charged, it would be one at a time and he 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 583 

could always kill that one. He told me that the latter part of 
the summer his party had scarcely ever been more than ten yards 
away when shooting and commonly enough the powder would singe 
the hair. The animal stood with lowered head and the bullet 
could be placed in the back of the neck just at the base of the horns, 
resulting in instant death and clean butchering. 

Occasionally, perhaps frightened by something else, a herd will 
run away on the first approach of danger. If they start running 
they are more difficult to overtake than caribou, which seldom run 
more than eight miles. But commonly when ovibos are alarmed 
they will run to the top of the nearest small knoll and make a 
defensive formation spoken of as a circle or a square, although I 
have seen triangles and various irregular formations. Usually the 
big animals are on the outside with the calves in the center. When 
there are two they will stand tail to tail and when three they make 
a three-pointed star. If danger is approaching from one side only 
they may form in two or three lines with the biggest animals in the 
front rank and the smallest in the rear. Their central idea is one 
of defense though they may charge upon occasion. Two animals 
may charge together but I have never seen a whole band do so, 
nor have I heard of it. Usually they charge singly, each one mak- 
ing a short rush of from ten to fifteen yards, then whirling rapidly, 
running back to the herd, facing about once more, and backing 
into line. 

Besides the most obvious reason for killing an entire herd instead 
of several animals out of each herd, there are the following ad- 
vantages : 

The animals stand in such close formation that you can rarely 
be sure of killing one without wounding others. These wounded 
animals would probably later die or become a prey to wolves. 

If the big animals of a herd are killed the remaining calves and 
yearlings would probably be unable to defend themselves and would 
be killed by some band of wolves. 

Wolves and bears are continually prowling about and if you 
have meat depots in many places they cannot all be guarded, but 
when a large number of animals are killed in one place you can have 
a man camping beside the kill until all the meat has been hauled 
home. 

You also want the whole herd because of the various qualities 
of the meat. The biggest animals are commonly fattest and the 
fat is precious, but the meat of these is often very tough and not 
so suitable for human food as that of the younger animals. I have 



584 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

never known any one who preferred the small calves, but the year- 
lings are commonly considered best. There would be no advantage 
in letting the calves escape, for without the herd they would be 
killed by wolves. 

It is curious that even zoologists have fallen into the notion 
that ovibos live on lichens and mosses. Apparently this follows 
the assumption that there is little polar vegetation except crypto- 
gams. Any good anatomist should be able to tell by a glance at 
the mouth of an ovibos that he is a grass-eater. Most lichens, in- 
cluding the so-called caribou moss, are shrinking plants that are 
easily picked up only by animals with prehensile lips, such as 
sheep or reindeer. A cow has a clumsy mouth not adapted to 
picking up small things and gets the grass into her mouth by stick- 
ing out her tongue and using it as a hook to pull it in. So do 
polar cattle. 

Ovibos live on grass and other phanerogams, a fact which 
should be well known but is not, for zoologists persist in assuming 
that their bones found in southerly countries prove that there must 
have been in those parts a contemporary vegetation abounding in 
cryptogams. And the curators of highly respected zoological mu- 
seums mount ovibos realistically in glass cases to show school chil- 
dren and others how they scratch lichens for food from underneath 
the snow. These are probably the only ovibos who ever had their 
mouths full of lichens. Still, cattle and horses will eat strange 
things when put to it, and it is not impossible that a herd might 
stray into a neighborhood where no other food is available, and 
while they could not pick it directly off the ground as caribou can, 
they could, of course, always scratch it up and eat it off the snow. 

When hunting ovibos in winter we frequently see quantities of 
moss and lichens scattered over the snow where they have been 
feeding. But the things a man leaves on his plate are not neces- 
sarily identical with those he has eaten. To find out what ovibos 
eat you must either observe them extremely near or else cut open 
their paunches. The first we have never done, but of paunches 
we have opened several hundreds. These have always contained 
prevailingly phanerogams with no more moss or lichens than you 
would expect to find mixed with the grass when it is pulled up. 
But Storkerson tells me that he has opened paunches where moss 
formed a high proportion — not caribou moss, which is a lichen, but 
various real mosses.* 

* A friend who has read the proofs of this book wants me to put in here a 
footnote saying there is grass in winter on the polar lands. I had not thought 




M^iiliMiiiililair ihiifi dii(iiai itiM«iifc>--rttiiiiaaM| ^ 



iiiiisiiiii»ji-«ll&>'*wi-^r;iiiiyiMi.Biilliiiiiirns 



i^&^4te^^: 




Musk Oxen under Domestication — ^Bronx Park, New York. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 585 

We lived almost entirely at Storkerson's camp on ovibos meat 
and the white men preferred to continue doing so, but the Eskimos 
were hungry for caribou meat and insisted on having it brought 
in. The depots were in very rocky country to the east and I 
was reluctant to send sledges for it until later in the season, for 
the shoeing easily gets worn through, and sled shoeing is the most 
valuable and indispensable of items in work such as ours. But 
eventually we yielded and the meat was brought in. For two or 
three days there was much talk among the Eskimos about how 
much they preferred the caribou meat and no doubt arguing 
against them would have kept them of the same opinion. But 
by quietly refraining I was able to observe them gradually for- 
getting the superiority of the caribou meat and a good deal of it 
was eventually fed to the dogs. This was not because the ovibos 
meat was superior but rather because it was fatter. In my opin- 
ion not one person in ten could even when on his guard tell an 
ovibos steak from a beefsteak, unless there were bones in the cut 
to enable one to tell through anatomical difference. Peary has 
said that ovibos meat is better than beef, but he probably meant 
merely that his appetite was better when he was eating it. To 
me the two meats seem identical. 

As the name ovibos implies, we have here a cow or ox with a 
coat of wool. The entire body is covered with long, straggling, 
stiff black hair, in nature similar to the mane of a horse. In the 
roots of this hair grows wool. The wool is shed every spring but 
the hair is never shed. Furriers prefer skins with as little wool 
on them as possible and ovibos killed for commercial purposes 
have therefore been killed in the autumn. Through the autumn 
and early winter the wool gradually thickens and by spring it 
bulges out all over the animal, but especially on the shoulders. 
Their bodies are heavy forward, anyway, somewhat after the 
style of the buffalo, but a great exaggeration of the hump is pro- 
duced by the mass of wool that covers it. In April and May 
the wool is shed. These are short-legged animals and when you 
have a side view of them at the shedding season frequently the 
legs cannot be seen at all for the curtain of wool that hangs to 

this necessary. Grass has neither legs to run nor wings to fly, and decay 
does not come till the following summer. Then where should the grass dis- 
appear to? The snowfall is far less than in such countries as Montana, where 
stock feed out all winter. Then wherewithal should the grass be so covered 
that animals native to those regions have any difficulty in getting it? That 
polar cattle are fatter in January than in July shows equally that they can 
get the grass in winter and that the grass is nourishing. 



586 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

the ground. They drag it in long tags after them as they walk 
and these can be picked up on the ground. Although the hair 
is not properly shed, a few pieces break off, as may be the case 
with the mane or tail of a horse, and straggling hairs are, therefore, 
found in the wool. 

We have already described ovibos as having several character- 
istics unique among grazing animals. But there are others. So 
far as I know, they are the only herbivori that do not roam in 
search of pasture. While they generally avoid lichens and mosses, 
they eat all the grass in their neighborhood and move only as fast 
as the feed is removed. Eskimos go so far as to say that if you 
see a herd here this year you will find them not far from here 
next year, and Hanbury quotes the Indians of Slave Lake as hav- 
ing a similar saying. This is emphasizing the fact by over-state- 
ment, for in such pasture as Melville Island they move from three 
to six miles per month. When they come to a really rocky or bar- 
ren patch, they may make a move in an hour or two covering sev- 
eral miles. In a rich country like Banks Island, which probably 
averages from five to ten times as much vegetation to the square 
mile as Melville Island, a herd of thirty or forty animals might 
not move more than a mile in a month. 

In Melville Island ten or fifteen animals make up a typical 
herd and I have never seen more than forty in a herd, strictly 
speaking, although I have seen over a hundred scattered over a 
few square miles of flat land in such a way that one might take 
them for a single herd. 

They are peculiar among powerful animals in that they seldom 
attack and seldom flee. They have the military principle of the 
British square, but they have never developed the theory that the 
best way to defend yourself is to attack. Indeed it would not be 
the best way for them. It may be that animals of the type of 
panther preyed upon them long ago when they lived in southerly 
lands, but in the Arctic they have, when the calf stage is once 
passed, a defense against every enemy that troubles them, except 
man. Polar bears might be expected to prey on them but we have 
never heard of this nor seen any evidence of it, and I doubt very 
much whether a bear would fare well if he attempted to attack 
more than one ovibos. Neither do I know which can run the 
faster. Both are clumsy but both are at home in rough going. 

Reindeer and sheep are milked for butter and cheese-making 
in certain countries. Ovibos give more milk, probably richer in 
butter fat, and of a flavor either identical with the richest cow's 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 587 

milk or differing less from it than any other milk does. They 
have wool that seems as good as sheep's wool for garments, although 
this wool has not yet been fully tested. It certainly has the ad- 
vantage that garments made of it will not shrink. Each animal 
gives more wool than a sheep,* and of meat it gives three times 
as much. The annual meat output would not, however, be treble 
that of the sheep, for it probably takes ovibos four years to mature. 

When we sum up the qualities of ovibos, we see that here is an 
animal unbelievably suited to the requirements of domestication 
— unbelievably because we are so habituated to thinking of the 
cow and the sheep as the ideal domestic animals that the possibility 
of a better one strikes us as an absurdity. We have milk richer 
than that of cows and similar in flavor, and more abundant than 
that of certain milk animals that are now used, such as sheep and 
reindeer; wool probably equal in quality and perhaps greater in 
quantity than that of the domestic sheep; two or three times as 
much meat to the animal as with sheep, and the flavor and other 
qualities those of beef. When you add to this that the animal 
does not roam in search of pasture, that the bulls are less dangerous 
than the bulls of domestic cattle because not inclined to charge, 
and that they defend themselves so successfully against packs of 
wolves that the wolves imderstand the situation and do not even 
try to attack, it appears that they combine practically every virtue 
of the cow and the sheep and excel them at several points. 

They are now living prosperously on the north coast of the most 
northerly land ever discovered and on every arctic island on which 
they have ever set foot except those from which they have been 
exterminated by man. That there are only a few hundreds or 
thousands now surviving on the continent of North America where 
there must have been millions at the time when they extended south 
to the Ohio, may seem to indicate some unfitness for competing 
with the environment. But probably there has been no unfitness 
except inability to compete with man. 

Zoologists generally assume that ovibos have died out from the 
southerly lands they formerly inhabited as a result of a change 
of climate, possibly through bacterial attack, possibly because the 
vegetation became unsuitable. But the habits of this animal are 
such that they and their human hunters armed with even the most 

* Here we have no direct evidence except the statement of Dr. W. T. 
Homaday, Director of the New York Zoological Garden, who estimates that 
one animal kept there in captivity yielded fifteen pounds of wool per year. 
The uncertainty consists in the fact that the wool was not actually weighed 
but merely estimated. 



588 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

primitive weapons can never permanently occupy the same area. 
In Melville Island we killed entire herds when we needed them. 
The Eskimos kill entire herds whether they need them or not, and 
so it has probably been with primitive man since the earliest stone 
age. We assume that man as a hunter gradually spread north- 
ward. Then need we assume any other cause for the gradual 
extinction of the ovibos? It seems to me not, unless it can be defi- 
nitely shown that they were extinct before the first hunters ar- 
rived. 

But the very qualities which make it impossible for them to 
compete with man as an enemy qualify them admirably for becom- 
ing his ally in the sense of the domestic animals. In tropical and 
subtropical countries some domestic animals need no help from 
man except protection against predatory animals. But in the 
climate of protracted winter they need greater and greater coddling. 
No blizzard ever blew that inconvenienced the ovibos nor has any 
one seen proof that they find the cold uncomfortable. Generally 
they are fattest in winter and if they get poor in the spring, that 
seems to be connected with their breeding habits rather than with 
the severity of the weather. They need no barn to shelter them, 
no hay to feed them, no protection from any enemy except man 
himself. Possibly their southward extension may be limited by 
hostile microbes or bacteria, but of that we as yet know nothing. 
Meanwhile I take it to be certain that part of the approaching 
development of the North will be their domestication. 

The domestic reindeer * has many attractive qualities. For fif- 
teen hundred years certainly, and perhaps for millenniums before, it 
has been the main domestic animal of millions of north Asiatics 
about whom we Europeans do not know very much. Neither did 
they know much about us until lately. But the meat of the rein- 
deer is becoming yearly a more and more important food of the 
Scandinavians and north Russians, and in Europe it appears in new 
markets every year. In America the industry is a success in Alaska 
and a small amount of reindeer meat is sold at luxury prices from 
Seattle to New York. The reindeer is already with us as a factor 
in the meat supply. Reindeer can convert into delicious meat the 
billions of tons of edible vegetation that go to waste yearly on 

♦There are many breeds of domestic reindeer and many varieties of wild 
caribou. But the difference between the smallest domestic reindeer and the 
largest wild caribou is no more than that between Jersey and Shorthorn cattle. 
Nor do they appear to differ in food habits or hardiness. Where the wild 
caribou thrive in spite of wolves, there should the domestic reindeer, protected 
from wolves by man, thrive even better. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 589 

the northern prairies. But although they need no shelter from the 
climate nor help from man in securing their food, they fall an 
easy prey to the wolves and present the same herding difficulties 
as domestic cattle. 

We need clothing as well as food, wool as well as meat; and 
for this and several other reasons I would suppose that the ovibos 
and not the reindeer will a century hence be the chief domestic 
animal of the northern half of Canada and the northern third of 
Asia. Of course it is possible to imagine all sorts of difficulties 
in domestication. The only way to settle such a problem is to 
try it out, and the prospect of success is so good that the trial is 
sure to be made.* 

* I hope the reader will not think that I imagine myself to have dealt 
in this chapter with every serious problem connected with an attempt to 
domesticate ovibos. This is not a book about the commercial possibilities of 
the North, except incidentally, and this chapter is frankly a digression from 
the main theme. But information as full as it can possibly be before the 
thing is actually tried is now available. 

The winter of 1919 the Honorable Arthur Meighen, then Minister of 
the Interior but now Prime Minister of Canada, became interested in the 
possibility of domesticating ovibos and in the other proposals that had been 
made for utilizing the food-producing resources of northern Canada. At his 
instance an order-in-council vv^as passed and a commission appointed of 
three men thoroughly qualified to render a just verdict. Mr. J. S. McLean 
is manager of the Harris Abattoir Company, one of the largest meat packers 
of Canada. Mr. J. B. Harkin is Commissioner of Dominion Parks and in 
that capacity has familiarity with the success under semi-domestication of 
the various big game animals in the Dominion parks and especially of the 
large herd of bison at Wainwright. The chairman of the commission. Dr. J. G. 
Rutherford, is one of the leading animal husbandry men of Canada and has 
made a study of just the problems that will be involved if an attempt should 
be made to domesticate ovibos. This commission has gathered evidence from 
most of the available witnesses. A digest of this evidence has already been 
submitted to Parliament. It will doubtless soon be printed and will then be 
available to those who write for it to the Department of Interior, Ottawa. 
In it we have a body of information which should destroy much of the 
superstition about the vegetation and climate of the N'orth and the 
suitability of the arctic and subarctic lands for the production of meat on a 
commercial scale, whether they are reindeer, polar cattle, or some other 
suitable animal. 



CHAPTER LVI 

THE FOURTH MIDWINTER, 1916-17 

THE departure of Storkerson, Castel, Noice andEmiu for Cape 
Grassy was made on the last day of October. They had two 
sledges loaded with seven hundred pounds each of dried meat 
and seal oil in addition to camping gear and some fresh meat in- 
tended for dog feed. Their program was threefold. They were to 
build a line of snow camps which could be used as roadhouses on the 
trips that we expected to make back and forth during the winter. 
They were also to get this much dried meat forward to Grassy ; and, 
finally, they were to establish Castel in charge of that place from 
which he would continue any useful operations possible. If there 
still remained in the field any ovibos meat that Natkusiak had not 
brought home, this was to be gathered at Grassy. Natkusiak with 
the sled he had broken the previous summer was to come down 
to Winter Harbor where, through the fortunate find of iron and 
hard wood left by Captain Bernier, we should now be able to 
repair it. On the way north Storkerson's teams would pick up 
the groceries and kerosene brought from Bernier's cache and left 
a few days before near the foot of Liddon Gulf. 

The loads that Storkerson took were exceptionally heavy, con- 
sidering that many of his dogs were small. His object was to get 
to Grassy in time to return by the next full moon. 

Charlie's hand healed presently and he and Lopez kept steadily 
at work hauling home the meat of the thirty-eight ovibos killed 
October 26th, while I worked up the information secured during 
the preceding spring and summer, and recorded ethnological in- 
formation obtained chiefly from Mrs. Lopez. She was a good in- 
formant and told much about the folklore and practices of her peo- 
ple that interested me. But one day she told things about her 
husband that interested me quite as much. 

It is not easy to tell how children pick up prejudices against 
certain foods, but such a prejudice is ordinarily tenaciously re- 
tained. Until I was twenty-seven I had the belief about myself 
that I could not eat fish and felt certain that its taste was ob- 

590 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 591 

noxious to me. I thought it an interesting peculiarity and assumed 
that everyone else would think so, and there were few things I 
told about so often as the fact that I was peculiar in that I could 
not eat fish. I think I might have lost the notion sooner if it had 
not formed such an excellent topic of conversation. And so I im- 
agine it is with many who have similar beliefs about food. 

The peculiarity about Peter Lopez was that he could not eat 
fat. He had a story to explain this. The explanation ran that 
when he was a small boy in the Cape Verde Islands fat was ex- 
pensive and he was forbidden to eat more than the share that came 
to him as one of several children. But one day when nobody was 
looking he made away with the allowance intended for the whole 
family. His mother to punish him melted up some lard and com- 
pelled him to drink it. This overdose caused nausea and from 
that time on he had an unconquerable repugnance against fat in all 
forms. This he had kept through all the vicissitudes of his career 
as a whaler in the Arctic and as a trapper married to an Eskimo 
wife and living among Eskimos. 

Now came the time when he learned that I intended to abandon 
the Star temporarily and take him with the rest of our crew to 
Melville Island where they would all have to live on meat. He 
approached me on the subject of whether he might take an extra 
allowance of sugar for himself to Melville Island since he could not 
eat fat, and I vetoed it on the ground that where everybody is 
more or less fond of sugar it would not be practicable to allow one 
man to have more than the rest. Neither did I have much sym- 
pathy with his prejudice, thinking that he would get over it as I had 
got over mine. But he was certain that he could never learn to 
like fat. 

When the party reached Melville Island they had some sugar. 
After it was finished Lopez began to feel increasingly uncomfortable 
living on meat from which he carefully trimmed off all the fat. 
His wife kept urging him to try a little tallow or a little boiled 
suet or some marrow, either raw or cooked, but he refused. It 
presently became evident that he was losing flesh rapidly and even- 
tually he became actually ill. 

And then one day his wife caught him surreptitiously eating a 
piece of fat. At first he became angry at her spying on him, and 
he forbade her to tell. But the joke was too good to keep and 
she told everybody, whereupon Lopez owned up and began to eat 
fat openly. He recovered his health, flesh and spirits in a few 
days and by the time I arrived in the fall he prided himself on being 



592 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

able to eat more fat than any Eskimo in the party. As for that 
he could, but it was merely because he was a big man and working 
hard. Eskimos on the average eat neither more nor less fat than 
white men or negroes do under the same circumstances. 

Full moon came on the 9th or 10th of November and we ex- 
pected Storkerson to leave Cape Grassy and arrive in a week at 
the isthmus where the crossing is made from Liddon Gulf to Win- 
ter Harbor. He would have with him Natkusiak and the crippled 
sled. Lopez and Charlie were to meet them there and the several 
sleds would go over to Winter Harbor where the party would stay 
long enough for these to be all repaired and in thoroughly good 
shape for the spring work. It is one of the conveniences of the 
Arctic that some of the moons in this latitude do not set for as 
much as four or five days, affording when the sky is clear almost 
as good traveling conditions as perpetual daylight. 

Charlie and Lopez left for the rendezvous on the 17th and by 
the 30th they had been away so long that I was beginning to expect 
at least one team back. That evening both men returned with the 
astonishing news that Storkerson had not yet arrived from the North. 
With the dried meat that was to be relayed to Grassy they had 
gone to the Liddon Gulf end of the portage and had camped there 
waiting for Storkerson until they and the dogs had eaten up the 
whole load, and now they came home with an empty sled. We 
could not guess what had happened and had another time of 
worry, until December 9th Natkusiak arrived with a letter. This 
made everything clear but the news was not good. 

On the way north, Storkerson wrote, they had been delayed by 
head winds and by weather so cold that some of the dogs froze 
their flanks. This can never happen from mere cold but only 
from a combination of low temperature with high wind. On the 
way north they had lingered to search for game on the portage 
between Liddon Gulf and Hecla Bay but had been unsuccessful, 
owing to cloudy weather and absence of daylight. When they 
reached Grassy Natkusiak had made attempts to fetch meat from 
inland and there had been further delay through his inability to 
find his depots promptly, this again because of storms and darkness. 

At last they started back, and there was no untoward incident 
until in crossing south from Hecla Bay they steered too far west 
and did not come down to sea ice until in Barry Bay. This re- 
sulted in one of the serious misfortunes of the expedition, though 
it might have been only trivial under different circumstances. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 593 

Getting lost doubled the distance overland, which of itself was of 
little consequence. But this was a mountainous country full of 
precipices. It was now the dark of the moon and with continual 
storms they had no light at any time. From Natkusiak's account 
and from all other accounts later they had many narrow escapes 
from death. These were the things that might have been serious. 
What actually was serious was that they had to drag their sledges 
for miles over rocks, so that the steel runners were weakened on 
some till they were no longer reliable and on one they were worn 
away completely. 

Now we should have been practically helpless but for Bernier's 
sleds and boat at Winter Harbor. Our tools were inadequate and 
Bernier had left none, but his sleds were of a type so unsuited to 
our work that we had to find some way of removing the shoeing 
and transferring it to our sleds. It was not the right width nor 
the right quality but it had to do. Most fortunately there was a 
shoeing not only on his sleds but also on the boat, for it had been 
made with the idea that it might sometimes be dragged over ice. 
We were reluctant to strip a boat left there for a definite purpose, 
but we had found Melville Island such a good country to live in 
that we thought any shipwrecked people could well spend the 
winter there, and if they wanted to leave it, it would be easier to 
walk out than to depend on a boat in the early spring, no matter 
how good for getting out in summer. We thus made use of what 
Bernier had left to further our success, not to insure our safety. 

Storkerson's party would have to spend a long time at Winter 
Harbor, certainly weeks and perhaps a month. This brought to 
my mind more forcibly a fear that he and I had already discussed. 
Until the discovery of Bernier's depot we had not worried about 
scurvy but now the danger was imminent unless we were careful. 
I cautioned Storkerson and indeed all the men to be sure to eat 
plenty of ovibos meat along with the Winter Harbor groceries, 
and if necessary, to feed groceries to the dogs so as to leave fresh 
meat for the men. 

This gives excellent opportunity for a digression on the subject 
of scurvy but there is no space. Any one interested can get the 
facts about this disease from the medical literature of the last half 
dozen years. If he goes a little farther back than that he may 
get interesting reading but not many facts. For up to the begin- 
ning of the Great War most of what was believed by the medical 
profession about scurvy would be classed now by an unfriendly 



594 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

critic as superstition and by a friendly one would be given some 
other name with the same meaning.* 

Briefly reviewed, the situation is this: It had been believed 
for more than a century that lime juice is a specific against scurvy. 
But every polar expedition has been outfitted with lime juice and 
nearly all of them had scurvy. Lime juice has been administered in 
large quantities to those who have had scurvy and many of them 
have died. The blame was always laid on the poor quality of the 
lime juice, its deficiency in acid content and the like. It did not 
occur to any one that while the effect of lime juice on scurvy is 
positive and rapid if it is freshly bottled, juice several years old 
has no appreciable preventive or curative value. Something has 
been made, and rightly, of the fact that lemon juice is better than 
lime juice, but the central fact is that either of them or any anti- 
scorbutic whatever loses its value, rapidly or slowly, with storage. 

In popular stories dramatic cures of scurvy are often made with 
raw potatoes or raw onions. In fact, a raw potato is one of the 
regular stage properties of the novelist and dramatist of the far 
North. But they emphasize the potato where they ought to empha- 
size the eating of it raw. Fresh vegetables if raw have marked 
antiscorbutic value, but this is lessened or destroyed by either 
cooking or storage, and especially by a combination of the two. 
Entirely raw fresh milk is an antiscorbutic but pasteurized milk 
has either little antiscorbutic value or none. There are probably 
few foods which do not have antiscorbutic value when raw, whether 
they are vegetable or animal, fish, flesh or fowl. 

That is the secret of preventing arid curing scurvy. Every 
one of the food items left by Captain Bernier at Winter Harbor, 
although in apparently perfect condition, was devoid of antiscor- 
butic qualities. These would all have to be supplied by ovibos or 
caribou meat, eaten not necessarily raw but underdone. 

The history of the winter in Melville Island is so complicated 

that it must in general be omitted. Our plans were over ambitious. 

The summer had gone so well that we laid out too big a program 

for the winter. It seemed, too, that everything that could possibly 

go wrong did go wrong and that every chance was decided against 

us. Bad weather always struck the traveling parties at critical 

places where losing the trail meant getting entangled in mountains 

*See The Journal of the American Medical Association, Nov. 23, 1918, 
Vol. 71, pp. 1715-1718, "Observations on Three Cases of Scurvy," by Vilhjal- 
mur Stefansson; and Medical Review of Reviews, May, 1918, "Original Ob- 
servations on Scurvy," by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. 



Gor. 

"Noi 
Rob 



Cape Kellelll 
Sacij 



••<f^ 




THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 595 

or among rocks. After Storkerson's experience where he had in 
a day nearly taken the shoeing off several of our sledges, it became 
evident that no one must travel over rocks at all, no matter how 
badly he got tangled in them, unless it were a matter of life or 
death. There was nothing to do but wait for clear weather or 
a moon, for now that the Bernier shoeing had been put on our 
sledges there was none to replace it. On his way northward and 
back on the first trip Storkerson had made some depots of fresh 
ovibos meat. These were either rifled by wolves because of some 
fault of construction, or could not be found in the darkness by the 
traveling parties. While our summer work has frequently been 
disagreeable, this was the only winter of our whole experience 
where any of the men had what could fairly be called hardships. 
But this winter they had plenty of them. 

At first I remained in camp for the sake of the ethnological 
work I was preparing and because with more men than teams and 
sledges my help was unnecessary. But during the winter I devel- 
oped a slight but annoying illness which confined me to the house 
and threatened to last into the spring. This did not happen, how- 
ever, for by spring I was almost well and perfectly so before we 
had to leave the Grassy base. 

We had intended to start the spring work this year in Janu- 
ary, but misfortunes dragged the preparations on into February. 
These did not make a great difference except for the hardship to 
the men and the fact that the dogs were in consequence not in the 
best condition. One thing you cannot start without is an adequate 
outfit of good clothing, and our seamstresses were slow in getting 
the clothing ready because two of them were ill — Mrs. Lopez se- 
riously for a while, and the best one, Guinnana, was troubled with 
failing eyesight which interfered both with the quality and quan- 
tity of her work. There was probably nothing wrong with her 
eyes which a good pair of spectacles would not have corrected, 
but it was a long way to the nearest optician. 

In early February when everything else was in a fair state of 
readiness we had trials of a more serious sort. The mainspring 
of the better of our two pocket chronometers broke. There is not 
much use in a journey such as we wanted to make unless you can 
carry accurate time for the determination of longitude. None of 
us were watchmakers but something had to be done, so Storkerson 
undertook the job. He took out the broken mainspring and then 
we examined several ordinary watches carried among us and found 
one which had a mainspring of a similar size and kind. Storkerson 



596 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

took this watch apart and put the spring into the broken chronom- 
eter. To do such a job is one thing but to do it well is another 
and we had little hope at first that we would get a satisfactory 
timepiece. Immediately when the watch was running we took a 
star observation and then compared the repaired timepiece day by 
day with the other, in which, however, we had little confidence. 
A delay of a week or ten days was imperative to get several time 
observations, at the end of which we were almost astounded to 
find that the watch seemed to have as steady a rate as ever, al- 
though naturally a quite different one. Of the many useful things 
Storkerson did for the expedition this was one of the most im- 
portant. 

During the winter we had speculated on what had happened 
to the Bear and there were probably a dozen theories or variations 
of theories as to why we had not heard from her. Observations 
of Storkerson's party from Cape Ross had indicated that Melville 
Sound had been open during the latter part of summer and we 
thought that a ship could have come through, so it seemed most 
reasonable that she had been wrecked in the early spring, probably 
just at the time of the break-up in Prince of Wales Straits. An- 
other theory was that while Melville Sound had been open. Prince 
of Wales Straits might have been closed, and that the ship was 
now lying at Armstrong Point, for her orders had been that if she 
could not come north she was to stay where she was. 

Some of the men stated that before they left the Bear the pre- 
vious winter they had heard plans being made for spending the 
coming winter in Walker Bay on Minto Inlet where the caribou 
hunting and ''salmon" fishing were both excellent and where there 
were plenty of Eskimos for company. All our people were either 
Eskimos or white men used to wintering where there were plenty 
of Eskimos, and it was easy to see that this would be to their 
minds an ideal wintering place. I took little stock in this explana- 
tion of the non-appearance of the Bear, however, since Storkerson's 
v4fbal report and Wilkins' letter had both said that the officers and 
crew were anxious to bring the ship to Melville Island. The talk 
went on that there had been a rumor that I was keeping the expedi- 
tion north against the orders of the Government and some of the 
men now thought that the officers of the Bear, relying on this rumor, 
had sailed south to ^'civilization," counting on Government ap- 
proval. A variation of this story had it that some one on the 
expedition had received direct information from the Government 
that nobody's wages would be paid, and it was said that several 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 597 

of the men had expressed their intention of taking the law into their 
own hands and sailing south for this reason, for they did not propose 
to work another year without wages. 

I am not telling these things for facts but merely to illustrate 
the frame of mind people get into in the isolation of the North. 
The latter two and more remarkable of the four theories were not 
based upon anything that had happened in Melville Island but 
rested on talk at the Bear the previous year. It is in the idleness 
of a ship in winter quarters that such stories grow up. In Melville 
Island we were far too busy to invent anything so elaborate, al- 
though there was time enough in the winter darkness to speculate 
on what was already in our minds. 

There were many articles of equipment on the Bear which we 
needed badly and in which the Bernier cache had disappointed 
us. Nothing had rejoiced us so much as the kerosene and the lan- 
tern, but the kerosene proved not half as much in quantity as we 
had thought and the quality was extraordinarily poor. There are 
stories from the early explorers of kerosene becoming white and 
thick with the winter frost and these are true, for in those days the 
processes of refining petroleum were not well understood. I had 
thought that such oil was a matter of history, but in the case of 
the Bernier oil it was now a matter of painful experience. 

On one occasion when the temperature was around sixty below 
zero the kerosene could not be poured out of a jug that had a mouth 
fully an inch in diameter. In the lanterns it burned badly and in 
our primus stoves it clogged and would not burn at all. A blue- 
flame kerosene stove has great advantages over the Eskimo method 
of cooking with tallow or animal oils, and quantities of kerosene 
were on the Bear. Seal oil is entirely satisfactory for heating 
snowhouses, which is another matter, but the lamp for heating 
will take two or three hours to cook a meal which a primus stove 
could bring to a boil in half an hour. Except for the thought that 
the Bear must be wrecked and unable to help us, we should have 
felt rather bitter against her during this winter, struggling need- 
lessly along in darkness without kerosene enough to be able to 
afford lantern light for the man who walked ahead to pick trail. 



CHAPTER LVII 

ARRIVAL OF GONZALES WITH NEWS 

FINALLY, the last week in February we had the repaired 
chronometer rated and were to start next morning for Cape 
Grassy. Everybody had started, in fact, some days before 
except Storkerson, Emiu and I, and we with a light sled had re- 
mained to finish the rating of the watches. And then, when every- 
body had long since given up hope, two sledges arrived — Captain 
Gonzales with Knight, Illun, Pikalu, and a Minto Inlet Eskimo, 
Ulipsinna. 

Captain Gonzales told a story which explained the ship's ab- 
sence. The Bear had been freed from winter quarters about the 
middle of July and during the latter part of that month and the 
first part of August she had cruised back and forth across the 
straits trying to find a way northward. The ice in the strait had 
been solid across from land to land and had never moved all sum- 
mer north of Armstrong Point. When conditions were seen to be 
hopeless, she proceeded south and went into winter quarters at 
Walker Bay. Wintering there was in direct disobedience of my 
orders, which had been that the ship should stay at Armstrong 
Point if she could not come nearer to us, but she had now gone a 
hundred miles farther away from us. For doing this Captain 
Gonzales had reasons which he at least considered adequate. The 
relations with the Eskimos at Walker Bay were reported pleasant 
and one man besides Ulipsinna was now in the employ of the expe- 
dition. Everything was going well on board. 

Captain Gonzales brought some news from the outside world. 
Our former engineer, Crawford of the Sachs, in partnership with 
a man I knew from Nome, Leo Wittenberg, had purchased the 
schooner Challenge, a ship on which I had spent much time when 
she was commanded and partly owned by Captain Pedersen and 
had wintered at Point Barrow in 1908-09. She is a schooner of some- 
thing like thirty-seven tons with gasoline power, but weak, as I 
knew both from Captain Pedersen's account and from having con- 
sidered buying her in Nome in 1913 before we chose the Sachs, 
However, ice conditions had been good along the north coast of 

598 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 599 

Alaska. The Challenge had come in without trouble and was 
now wintering in Minto Inlet, half a day's journey by sled from 
Walker Bay and the Bear. Crawford had left Nome late enough 
to report that Dr. Anderson's party in the Alaska, including Wil- 
kins, had reached Bering Straits. This should mean that their dif- 
ficulties were over and they were safe home. Chipman and pos- 
sibly some others had not been with the Alaska but had crossed 
overland from Coronation Gulf to Bear Lake, going home by the 
Mackenzie River, a more pleasant journey than the sea voyage 
and one which I much prefer, having tried both routes. 

Another piece of news was that Captain Lane in the Gladiator 
the previous summer had been unable to get beyond Herschel 
Island by ship but had gone out during the winter overland, sell- 
ing the ship to Ole Andreasen. One of Captain Lane's men had 
died of scurvy at Herschel Island during the winter. 

Captain Gonzales explained why he had not come earlier in the 
year or sent a sled to Melville Island. He had learned from Craw- 
ford — whOj on his voyage in, had met the Herman going out — that 
my old friend, Captain Pedersen, of that ship had landed mail for 
the expedition and certain supplies, including sledge material, at 
our Kellett base. Captain Pedersen learned then that Thomsen 
had not attempted the previous summer to carry out my instruc- 
tions either to return to Melville Island before the break-up of the 
ice or else spend the summer with his family at Mercy Bay. In- 
stead he was with Captain Bernard at Kellett but intended to leave 
in November for Liddon Gulf by way of the west coast of Banks 
Island, bringing mail and two new sledges. He had explained to 
Captain Pedersen that he knew we were in great need of the 
sledges and that he would not start from Melville Island until Cap- 
tain Bernard had these made. 

Since these were Thomsen's plans it had seemed to Gonzales 
best to communicate with him before sending a team to Melville 
Island. Accordingly, he had sent the Kilian brothers, Herman and 
Martin, with a fast dog team and a light load early in November 
with a message, advising Thomsen to go to Melville Island by 
way of the Bear and Prince of Wales Straits at the same time that 
the party which Gonzales intended to outfit would go. The 
brothers were to cross Banks Island by the route followed by me 
the fall of 1915 when one of them, Martin, was a member of 
my party. Later Martin had returned over the same route with 
Thomsen, so there was no doubt about his knowing the way. 
Furthermore, there was now a half-way station, for the Challenge 



600 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

had established camp at De Salis Bay at the east end of the over- 
land route, where two men were stationed, Otto Binder and August 
Masik. 

Before they started Herman had told the Captain that they 
would be able to make the round trip easily in twenty-five days. 
When they became overdue, Captain Gonzales went from the 
Bear to the trapping camp and learned that the brothers had 
passed De Salis Bay safely and had picked up Binder. He had 
formerly been engineer on the Sachs and was a great friend of 
Captain Bernard's so he had decided to go there for a visit. Masik 
was worrying about Binder, as the Captain was about the Kilian 
brothers, but nothing was done and the Captain returned to the 
Bear, After his return to winter quarters he continued waiting for 
the Kilians to come back until they were two months overdue, ^hen 
at last he started for Melville Island. 

After assimilating all the news I summarized it in my diary 
for March 1st: "The Captain's arrival is fortunate. We are not 
only relieved of the anxiety as to a possible tragic mishap to 
his ship last summer but we also now know where to send our 
people (the women and children). The load the Captain brought 
is valuable but not indispensable. There are two excellent and 
two fair primus stoves, over thirty-five gallons of distillate, seal- 
skin boots, etc., that are very valuable. The food part is also 
of some value, seeing he brought us dogs to haul it, but it will 
probably not contribute noticeably to our success or materially to 
our comfort. The anxiety as to the Kilian brothers and Thomsen 
now takes the place of our former worry over the Bear." 

The more we thought about the Kilians and Thomsen the 
more that anxiety increased. I could easily understand Thom- 
sen's not having followed out the instructions of the previous year 
to return in summer to Melville Island or spend the summer at 
Mercy Bay. Thomsen was efficient and faithful, but his idea of 
executing orders was to do so if it seemed wise or else to do 
whatever seemed wiser. It is always easy to forgive such a man 
although the results are sometimes bad, especially when coopera- 
tion must be arranged from a distance. The world in general is 
now so used to the telegraph and telephone that it may be difli- 
cult to realize how hard it is in the Arctic to coordinate operations 
of parties in distant places and covering a year or more of time, 
especially if directions are not followed whenever following them is 
possible. 

March 3rd Storkerson, Knight, Illun, Pikalu and Ulipsinna 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 601 

with four teams started for Cape Grassy. Emiu and I remained 
behind to get an additional star observation for rating our watches. 
Two good ones were secured on the 4th. further confirming that 
our repaired watch was maintaining a steady rate, and the 5th 
we started to overtake Storkerson, leaving the camp in charge 
of Gonzales. He and Lopez were to get some coal, for the supply 
dug in the fall had nearly given out, and some ovibos meat, for 
that also was running low. The mining would not be easy, for, 
unlike the Grassy coal vein, the vein that Storkerson's camp 
relied on was only a few inches thick, embedded now in frozen 
earth. We traveled rapidly and overtook Storkerson at Hooper 
Island where he had been stormbound for a day. 

It was on the whole rather difficult work. We soon found 
that 'we had made a mistake in taking the dogs brought by Gon- 
zales, as most of them were tired and as they were of the small 
Eskimo variety, anyway, and hardly able to keep up with the 
rest even under favorable conditions. The weather was excep- 
tionally cold, and cold weather increases the hauling weight of 
loads. At fifty or sixty below zero the grains of snow have 
angles sharp and hard enough to act upon the steel shoeing of 
the sledges somewhat as grains of sand would on a beach. It is 
one of the things that I have wanted to experiment with by "lab- 
oratory methods" and have neglected, but I suppose that a drop 
in temperature from ten above zero to fifty below must increase 
by three the strain put on the dogs in pulling a given load. 

It is said that other metals run more easily than steel over 
snow at low temperatures, but those who have read the experiences 
of Sverdrup, Mikkelsen and others with German silver shoeing 
will know that, even if steel drags harder, it is better in the long 
run for unless you get tangled in rocky ground it will last half 
a dozen years while German silver gives out promptly in rough 
ice. There is only one shoeing I know that is practical besides 
steel and that is ice, but this cannot be used on sledges of the 
Nome type nor on sledges of the Nansen and Amundsen type, as 
commonly used in the Antarctic also, for all these sledges have 
pliability. To keep ice shoeing, the sled runner must be a stout 
plank placed on edge, as in the Peary and Eskimo sledges. These 
are rigid, and ice shoeing will stay on them indefinitely. It needs 
to be repaired every morning but that is only a few minutes' job 
with each sled. At fifty below zero the hauling weight of a sled 
so shod is probably only a quarter or fifth as much as with steel 
shoeing. The applying and repairing of ice shoeing is easy and 



602 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

has frequently been described. This shoeing has no serious dis- 
advantage except that on a side hill the sledges are inclined to 
slide sidewise. In that respect ice shoeing is not much worse 
than German silver or copper, and one advantage of our steel 
shoeing is that it has sharp edges like a skate and when there is 
an inclination to slide it "bites" into the ice. When spring comes 
the ice shoeing melts off, but a sled can be made with steel shoe- 
ing underneath so that one has it to fall back on when the weather 
gets warm. 

With a strong wind, low temperature will result also in frost- 
bitten faces with the men and frozen flanks with the dogs. Al- 
though a facial frostbite is no more serious than sunburn, the 
freezing of a dog's flanks may lead to a sore which incapacitates 
him for work. 

Strong local winds were now blowing from the Raglan Range, 
and on the way up the west coast of Hecla Bay we had to remain 
in camp several days to prevent the dogs from freezing. Our re- 
liable thermometers had long ago all been broken and the ones 
we had with us gave only approximate temperatures. The lowest 
recorded at any time was on the portage between Liddon Gulf 
and Hecla Bay, 62° below zero. This was probably at least five 
degrees too low and certainly not an extreme temperature when 
one remembers that the United States Weather Bureau has re- 
corded a temperature of 68° below zero, corrected reading, from 
northeastern Montana. Indeed, I know of no arctic explorer who 
has recorded temperatures as low as are found within settled por- 
tions of the United States and not nearly as low as those of cer- 
tain farming districts in Siberia. 

Because this was perhaps our most uncomfortable winter trip, it 
may be interesting to compare as to comfort our traveling methods 
with those of some other explorers. I quote Nansen's "Farthest 
North," published in New York, 1897, Vol. II, pp. 145 ff : 

"As soon as Johansen had finished with the dogs . . . the sleeping- 
bags were spread out, the tent door carefully shut, and we crept into the 
bag to thaw our clothes. This was not very agreeable work. During the 
course of the day the damp exhalations of the body had little by little 
become condensed in our outer garments, which were now a mass of ice 
and transformed into complete suits of ice-armor. They were so hard and 
stiff that if we had only been able to get them off they could have stood by 
themselves, and they cracked audibly every time we moved. These clothes 
were so stiff that the arm of my coat actually rubbed deep sores in my 
wrists during our marches ; one of these sores — ^the one on the right hand 
— got frost-bitten, the wound grew deeper and deeper, and nearly reached 
the bone. I tried to protect it with bandages, but not until late in the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 603 

summer did it heal, and I shall probably have the scar for life. When we 
got into our sleeping-bags in the evening our clothes began to thaw 
slowly, and on this process a considerable amount of physical heat was 
expended. We packed ourselves tight into the bag, and lay with our 
teeth chattering for an hour, or an hour and a half, before we became 
aware of a little of the warmth in our bodies which we so sorely needed. 
At last our clothes became wet and pliant, only to freeze again a few 
minutes after we had turned out of the bag in the morning. There was 
no question of getting these clothes dried on the journey so long as 
the cold lasted, as more and more moisture from the body collected 
in them." 

On page 175: "The tent up, and Johansen attending to the dogs, 
I crept into the bag; but lying thawing in this frozen receptacle, with 
frozen clothes and shoes, and simultaneously working out an observa- 
tion and looking up logarithms, with tender, frost-bitten fingers, is not 
pleasurable, even if the temperature be only 22° Fahr. below zero." 

Much more of the same kind could be quoted, but the picture 
of discomfort is already clear — the typical picture of the sup- 
posedly necessary experiences of an arctic explorer as it has found 
ita^^ay into polar literature and into people's minds. 
/^ As I have remarked elsewhere, there has not been a frostbitten 
finger or toe in any party with which I have been connected dur- 
ing any but the first of my ten years north of the arctic circle, 
so we know the experience of "working out an observation and look- 
ing up logarithms with tender, frost-bitten fingers" only through 
reading. 

Nansen points out that during the day hoar frost gathers in 
the clothing and melts in the evening either in the warmth of the 
camp itself or, as with him, after crawling into the sleeping-bag. 
So far as I know, this condensation of hoar frost cannot be entirely 
prevented. Most of us are familiar with perspiration only in a 
liquid form, but it is well known to physiologists, and can be easily 
demonstrated when the weather is cold, that moisture is passing out 
of most or all parts of the body at all times so long as the indi- 
vidual is alive. If in calm weather at fifty below zero you hold 
out your bare hand, a wisp of steam will be seen rising from every 
finger, even though the hand may appear to be exceptionally dry 
and cold almost to the verge of freezing. 

This vapor, invisible at ordinary temperatures, is continually 
passing out from the body and out' through the underwear. But 
if the climate is cold, the dew point or point of condensation is 
reached in the second or third layer of clothing where the cold 
from the outside meets the warm ''steam" and turns it into hoar 



604 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

frost. If only two layers of clothing are worn, it may be that the 
dew point is reached outside of the second layer and that all the 
hoar frost will gather on the outside of the outer garments, where 
most of it can be brushed off. But if this be so at twenty below 
zero, for instance, it will not be so twenty or thirty degrees lower, 
and the condensation which may in the forenoon be forming on 
the outer side of the outer garment may in the afternoon, if the 
temperature has dropped, begin to form between the two layers. 
Then in the comparative warmth of even such a cold camp as 
Nansen's, where the temperature was twenty or thirty degrees be- 
low zero, some of this hoar frost will melt, for the point of con- 
densation will be farther from the skin than it was out of doors. 
Nansen would have become damp sitting in his tent even without 
getting into his sleeping-bag. But in the sleeping-bag the hoar frost 
turned into liquid and he practically slept in an ice-water bath all 
night. 

But although condensation in one's clothing cannot be pre- 
vented it can be easily dealt with. There are many ways of doing 
it, of which we think this is the best: 

Preferably I begin with a complete suit of underwear, including 
socks, of young caribou, with the hair next the skin. Outside of 
the fur undersocks I wear two or three pairs of blanket slippers, 
and outside of them a loose boot with canvas upper and sealskin 
sole very much of the type first designed, so far as I know, by 
McClintock. I have tried the elaborate felt and other boots used 
by the recent British antarctic expeditions and have found none 
of them so suitable as the McClintock boot, which is for extreme 
cold weather one of the few improvements known to me on Eskimo 
clothing. My reason for wearing several layers of duffle slippers 
is one of ease of making and mending. The same results could be 
obtained with several thicknesses of skin slippers as worn by the 
Copper Eskimos (of the mainland and islands around Coronation 
Gulf). 

Outside my fur drawers I have worn ordinary cheap trousers 
and outside of them several pairs of loose trousers, similar in cut 
to those worn by Chinamen. These have been made of light drill- 
ing. If the weather gets warm I take off one, two, or three of these 
and spread them on the sled. If the wind blows or the temperature 
drops I put them on again one by one till I have enough. On the 
upper part of the body I wear a fur shirt with the hair in, and 
a somewhat heavier fur coat with the hair out. Outside of this 
is a coat of linen-duster effect except that it is cut in the Eskimo 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 605 

style. This is made of light drilling but may be made of heavier 
material, such as light khaki. I have found very dense fabrics 
such as Burberry, unexcelled though they are for certain purposes, 
undesirable for snow shirts, for the very denseness of fiber causes 
hoar frost to form on the inside of Burberry that would form out- 
side of drilling or khaki. 

Some of my men wore knitted woolen caps underneath a fur 
hood, but personally I have never done this. I have found it es- 
pecially inadvisable to have a hood that fits closely about the 
face, for if the edge of the hood comes too near the mouth or nose, 
the breath will get to it before the point of condensation is reached 
and will form as ice. But if the hood comes only well over the 
ears, the distance from the nostrils is great enough so that the 
breath is condensed before it reaches it and settles on it in the 
form of light hoar frost that can be easily brushed off. All Es- 
kimos recognize this fact although they do not understand the 
principle, and their hoods never fit closely around the face. It is 
characteristic with white men who live among Eskimos to intro- 
duce an ''improvement" in a snug-fitting hood, but if these men 
are out in cold weather they often freeze a circle on their face cor- 
responding to the lining of ice that eventually forms on the hood. 
Any kind of hood, no matter how "snug," is all right for a per- 
son who is outdoors only a few hours and who can get into a road- 
house at night, as do the Alaska travelers, where clothes can be 
dried out. But a man who has to wear his coat day after day finds 
this snug hood troublesome. 

Whether the clothing is as just described or merely the double 
fur suit of the Eskimos, it is warm enough so that the air in con- 
tact witli the skin inside of the underwear may be said to be at 
tropical heat at all times. In consequence, a properly outfitted 
arctic traveler suffers less from cold than do the inhabitants of 
such countries as Scotland or Norway, who dress in porous cloth- 
ing giving the wind a chance to reach the skin and lower the body 
temperature. 

The late Archdeacon Hudson Stuck had a gift for terse expres- 
sion well known to the readers of his delightful books about Alaskan 
travel and to those who have heard him lecture. He was stationed 
for many years at Fort Yukon, three or four miles north of the 
arctic circle in Alaska. It is a wooded country and free from the 
strong winds that are our greatest handicap in the open, but, so 
far as mere cold is concerned, the Archdeacon experienced more 
of it than I or any polar explorer known to me. The United States 



606 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Weather Bureau has records of sixty-eight degrees below zero from 
Fort Yukon, which is probably about eight or ten degrees lower than 
I have ever seen it, although I may have experienced such tem- 
peratures without knowing it north of Great Bear Lake in 1911 
when I had no thermometer. The Archdeacon and I met in New 
York in 1919 and were comparing notes about our experience with 
the inquiring public who always know how dreadfully cold it is in 
the North and marvel that any one can live through it. He said 
that the inquiry which he found most tedious usually took the 
form, "How can you stand the dreadful cold up there?" Most of 
his inquirers were women and he had devised the stereotyped 
reply, "Madam, we do not endure the cold; we protect ourselves 
from it." There it is in a nutshell. 

But coming back to Nansen and our method of dealing with the 
hoar frost that forms in our clothing. His trouble lay in the fact 
that he took the clothes with him into the tent and, worse yet, 
into his sleeping-bag. Instead of pitching a tent when the weather 
is cold, we build, by the method already described, a snowhouse 
of such size as is required for our party. Then the fire is lighted. 
The temperature now is whatever it is outdoors, perhaps fifty below 
zero. The stove burns on a platform that is only a little lower 
than the bed, and the man who is going to do the cooking stands 
with all his clothing on down in the low place in front. Just as 
soon as the air begins to warm up a little, he sheds his snow shirt 
and presently his outer coat, being sure to do this before one par- 
ticle of moisture has yet melted through the rise of temperature 
in the house. Then he takes off as many pairs of his light drilling 
trousers as have hoar frost in them, cT5mmonly stripping ^o his fur 
underwear. Similarly, as many pairs of duffle slippers are taken 
off as show hoar frost. Then he climbs on the sleeping platform, 
dressed lightly in his underwear every garment of which is entirely 
free from hoar frost. The outer garments are thrown out in the 
alleyway where they remain without thawing. 

The rest of the men are occupied in feeding the dogs and get- 
ting everything outdoors snug for the night. By the time they are 
ready to come in, the house is comfortably warm. They do not 
come in with their outer hoar frosted garments at all, but undress 
in the alleyway and come in with only their underwear on. Of 
course, this underwear is fur, and is a good deal warmer than 
B.V.D.'s. 

Thus we have completely disposed of the problem of keeping our 
clothing dry. But if through any accident clothes should get wet, 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 607 

they can be dried by being hung up in the snowhouse or preferably 
by being worn in the house so that the heat of the body can co- 
operate with the heat generated by the stove for rapid drying. 
Occasionally I have rolled my sleeping-bag against the snow wall 
in the night, getting part of it wet. All I have to do then is to 
see that the wet side is uppermost when next I sleep in it and in a 
night or two it will be dry. 

On the trip of this spring we occasionally had to build houses 
of snow that was granular and to a degree porous. It happened, 
therefore, several times that it froze in our houses at night, though 
I do not think that the temperature ever went as low as zero. 
Still, it was our most uncomfortable trip and in that connection 
we used to discuss which we disliked more, the extreme heat we 
had experienced in various places or this extreme cold. Most of 
the men agreed that a temperature of anything above ninety in the 
shade constitutes the greater hardship. From heat there has been 
devised as yet no escape, but one suffers from cold only through de- 
fect in one's clothing; housing, or heating system. 



CHAPTER LVIII 

SPEING TRAVEL, 1917 

BY the time we got to Grassy it became apparent that the ad- 
ditional men and dogs brought by Captain Gonzales were 
eating more of our dried meat than their help was worth. 
For reasons I shall not go into, it appeared to me then that I could 
not solve the difficulty by merely sending them back, and was com- 
pelled instead to delay a week for the killing of additional ovibos 
which, unfortunately, we did not find very near the camp. The 
weather conditions also were exceptionally bad. We had blizzards 
so thick that you could not see over half a mile, accompanied by 
temperature in the vicinity of fifty below zero. This is far the 
worst winter weather I ever saw in the Arctic and was doubtless 
local, the wind being caused by the high land of the Raglan Range 
to the south. 

While we were getting the ovibos, I sent out an advance party 
towards the, new land, consisting of Castel in command, Charlie, 
Knight, Noice, and Pikalu, with twenty-seven dogs and three sleds. 
They were to go to the south coast of Borden Island (First Land) , 
pick up a depot already landed by Castel and proceed east and 
north, improving the survey of the coast which we had done poorly 
the previous fall on account of bad weather. They were to follow 
the east coast northward till it began to trend well west of north, 
when they were to leave it and wait for us at the edge of the 
shore floe, which we expected would be fifteen or twenty miles from 
land in this quarter. 

As soon as the ovibos had been killed the rest of us followed, 
camping in the snowhouses they had left for us but making slow 
progress, for the weather continued extreme and the sleds dragged 
heavily. 

That when I have been cold in the North it has been my own 
fault, is illustrated by a diary entry of March 30th, the day we 
reached Cape Mackay: "Started 12:40 P. M., reached land and 
found Castel's trail about 11 P. M., distance twenty-eight miles 
NNE . . . Weather very cold, minus fifty-four degrees Fahr., and 

608 




Natkusiak and His Favorite Big Dog. 








< 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 609 

a fifteen-mile breeze from the southeast most of the day. After 
reaching land a fifteen-mile breeze from the northeast. I wore 
only a single thin deerskin shirt with drill snow shirt outside, and a 
single pair of woolen mittens, and got about as cold as I have ever 
been. The other clothes were deep in the sled (because it had 
seemed warm in the morning) and I did not want to stop to get 
them out, as I knew we would find a snowhouse ready for us. My 
hands got too cold to thaw my face properly. Froze both cheeks, 
chin, and throat. Emiu froze his face about as much as I did, 
and one wrist in addition. All others froze faces more or less, 
Natkusiak pretty badly. No frostbites serious. My left hand, 
from the cold, I suppose, was swollen so that the knuckles appeared 
as depressions when I clinched my hand last night. Now (noon, 
March 31st) it is still swollen but not so much. Emiu's and Nat- 
kusiak's wrists are also swollen and so is my right hand, but less. 
(All of us who suffered did so because of not wanting to stop to 
put on clothing that we had put into the loads in the morning.) 
Others wore heavy outer clothing and were not even cold. Some 
of the dogs were slightly frostbitten." 

So far as the cold is concerned this is probably the most serious 
record of it in any of my diaries, and though it may sound un- 
pleasant to one who has never tried it, the fact is that none of us 
minded it this time any more than people mind an uncomfortably 
hot day in the South. A straightforward account of cold weather 
sounds dreadful to Southerners; a straightforward account of heat 
sounds dreadful to Far Northerners. 

On April 5th I sent back Illun, Pikalu and Ulipsinna with two 
sleds and twenty-nine dogs. It was a novelty to me and good fun 
to travel with such a large party as we had had up to this time. 
When all our teams were together it was really like one of the arctic 
expeditions you read about. At Grassy the returning party were 
to pick up Alingnak and the women of Natkusiak's camp and carry 
them south to Liddon Gulf. Two days later we had caught up to 
Castel's advance party and were all gathered together at the floe 
edge. Weather conditions were not propitious for sealing and we 
secured only two. 

So far on our expedition the outlook had often been bad but 
the event had never turned out quite as badly as we feared. I 
have seldom been so cheerful over the prospects of a coming year 
as I was the autumn of 1916 on the return to Melville Island where 
I found everything had been so admirably done by Storkerson and 
where fortune had seconded forethought at every turn. But the 



610 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

winter had brought misfortunes, and delays and difficulties con- 
tinued, so that it was only on April 12th that we finally got out 
on the moving ice, when our expectations had been for a month 
earlier. 

We had never left land at so high a latitude before and we never 
had found the ice so stable and favorable. It was not level, and 
rapid progress was impossible, but it had little of the danger and 
uncertainty of the thinner and more mobile ice where the currents 
are strong, as around Banks Island or Alaska. For the first few 
days we saw plenty of signs of seals but did not stop to hunt them. 
We took frequent soundings, for the character of the bottom was 
remarkably interesting. At the shore floe fifteen or twenty miles 
from land we got a sounding of four hundred and sixty-eight 
meters. After two days of travel, when we were eighteen miles 
farther from land, we got four hundred and fifty-two meters; ten 
miles farther on four hundred and forty-four meters. The bottom 
we were traveling over was therefore similar to that of an enclosed 
sea, as we knew from theory and found later when we ran a line 
of soundings across Melville Sound between Melville and Vic- 
toria Islands. This fell in with the theories of Greely, Harris and 
others that there ought to be land to the northwest, and with 
Peary's report of having seen ''Crocker Land" in that direction. 

Before we left the shore floe Charlie had complained of illness. 
On getting up suddenly he felt dizzy and sometimes collapsed. 
In general he was disinclined to all exertion, depressed with all 
sorts of gloomy forebodings, and his strength was noticeably less. 
These were the symptoms of scurvy and I asked to see his teeth 
and gums. The gums were swollen and purple and the teeth were 
slightly loose. There was a dull ache in the arch of the teeth and 
the gums bled readily. This was almost conclusive, but I did 
not see how it could be with the diet we had been having. When 
I said to him that with fresh meat every day scurvy was impossible, 
I really meant to inquire whether he had been following the direc- 
tions to eat fresh meat, and I took his reply of "Yes, sir," as indi- 
cating that he had been doing so and that the mouth trouble was 
probably pyorrhea. As we advanced he became weaker and more 
depressed every day, so that it became necessary to send him back. 
There were reasons for sending the support party back soon, al- 
though not quite this soon. I wanted Storkerson to complete the 
survey of Victoria Island if he could. 

The party that turned back on April 16th had several impor- 
tant things to do. We feared from the report brought by Captain 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 611 

Gonzales that Thomsen had made a sledge journey towards Mel- 
ville Island the previous winter and had got into difficulties. Castel 
was to travel with Storkerson's party only as far as Cape Ross, 
and was then to cut across to Mercy Bay in a search for news of 
Thomsen. Charlie would go with him if he was well enough, — 
otherwise Storkerson would find him some other companion. Cas- 
tel's party would visit our depot at Mercy Bay where they would 
probably find traces of Thomsen. They would then follow the 
coast west and south to Kellett, looking for information of all 
sorts. Captain Bernard had my instructions not to leave the 
Kellett base, and I expected Castel would find him there. He was 
to place himself under the Captain's orders and cooperate in re- 
pairing and launching the Sachs. Once launched they were to take 
her into a good harbor which lies two or three miles east of the 
Kellett base and wait there until late in the summer. When the 
season had advanced to where Captain Bernard considered that 
there was barely time left for getting her out (probably about 
August twenty-fifth), she was to sail for Herschel Island and 
Nome, reporting thence by cable to the Government at Ottawa, 
for I did not want her to spend another winter in the Arctic. Fail- 
ing news of us, they were to leave a depot of certain specified things 
behind at Kellett. 

To relaunch the Star would probably, I thought, cost the Gov- 
ernment more than she was worth. If I sent a party of men there 
to stay by for launching her in case of a favorable season, the ice 
conditions might prove wrong and they be compelled to spend an 
additional winter. The value of the ship would not repay the 
wages and trouble. But Natkusiak and some of the other Eskimos 
who had been working for us were very anxious to buy her and had 
coming from the expedition enough wages to give the Government 
what I considered the ship to be worth in her present condition 
and location. It was therefore arranged that Natkusiak should be- 
come the owner of the Star. He and his party would travel with 
Castel if they could, or follow him if he traveled too rapidly for 
them. They would spend the summer at the Star, and if ice con- 
ditions were favorable would launch her and come south to Kellett, 
although it was equally likely they would spend the winter at Cape 
Alfred, for that region has good trapping opportunities and is in 
many ways attractive to the modern half-civilized Eskimo. 

Instructions to Gonzales and Storkerson may be summarized 
together, for they overlapped. With the exception of Natkusiak's 
and CastePs parties, the members of our expedition would proceed 



612 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

from Melville Island to the Bear. Gonzales would then place at 
Storkerson's disposal men and equipment for the survey of the 
northeast coast of Victoria Island and assist to that end. Storker- 
son would proceed by whatever route he chose to the district to be 
surveyed and would finish it if he could and make his way back 
to the Bear, probably overland, either direct or by sled to Collin- 
son Inlet and then overland with pack dogs to Walker Bay. The 
Bear was then to proceed to Kellett and assist if necessary in the 
launching of the Sachs. If Captain Bernard should have been 
unable to launch the Sachs he and his party were to embark on the 
Bear and the entire expedition should sail for Nome. 

So far as my sledge party was concerned, the assumption back 
of these instructions was that if we were unable to reach Cape 
Kellett before the end of the summer when it became imperative 
to sail for a vessel that wanted to get out that year, we would 
look after ourselves and get out somehow. There were various 
methods of doing this and my mind was still open to the choice. 
It was possible we would go east to Ellesmere Land, spend the 
summer and early winter there, crossing to Greenland and travel- 
ing south along the Greenland coast by sledge, connecting with 
the Danish trading vessels the following year. More probably 
we would come south through Byam Martin Channel to the north 
coast of Victoria Island, spend the summer there, cross in the fall 
by sled to Bernard Harbor and go home by way of Bear Lake and 
the Mackenzie River. A third possibility was that we might find 
some land upon which we would spend a year or might even decide 
to spend a year on the ice. Of these secondary alternatives the 
last was the most attractive to me. But of course we would try to 
reach Kellett before the close of the season and I considered the 
chances better than two in three that we should be there before 
the 20th of August, an appropriate sailing date for a ship having no 
other task than to get out to Bering Straits as directly as possible. 

The advance party now consisted of Noice, Knight, Emiu and 
myself with two teams. We made fair progress but never fast, 
for we had been driving the dogs rather hard for a long time and 
they were a bit tired. The going was heavy also and not so much 
easier as it was safer. The general advantage was that we had on 
this sluggish-moving ice a feeling of the stability of all our sur- 
roundings unknown to us when traveling in the vicinity of Alaska. 

As we advanced on the ice the soundings became deeper and 
deeper until about a hundred miles from land we had five hundred 
and twenty-two meters. Then they began to shallow very grad- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 613 

ually till forty miles farther on we had four hundred and ninety- 
six. How we interpreted all the signs is seen from a part of a 
diary entry for April 25th: ''Land is probably ahead, for so it 
seems to all of us from the signs, but that very fact keeps the 
ice from moving and we find no open water for sealing and so 
can get no dog feed by that way. I haven't the time to record all 
the facts and reasons now but shall do so if we get seals and thus 
some spare time." 

We were now in an area of the sort I had always expected to 
find some time, although this was our first experience. This was 
one of the sea deserts I have already described. It may have 
been because of land to the northwest, as we thought, or only the 
result of winds and currents, that we had here an area where the 
ice was evidently under restraint as firm as the stresses were heavy. 
I have seldom seen such evidence of pressure and never far from 
land. The ice was on the average the heaviest I have ever seen 
and there is no doubt that seventy-five per cent, of it was many 
years old. But even ice averaging in thickness twenty and thirty 
feet had been crushed up into ridges which, although not huge as 
compared to the miniature mountains that may be built out of six 
and eight-foot ice near land, were still far bigger than any pres- 
sure ridges we had seen made out of old ice far at sea. The men 
thought some of them were a hundred feet high. We never meas- 
ured them but it is safe to say that they were over fifty. 

This ocean ice had not been moving much for months, if not 
years. While we were out on it we had severe and various gales, 
but these never caused a movement of more than a few miles, no 
more movement, indeed, than might have been caused had we been 
near the center of an enclosed sea where the lands ahead were as 
far away as the ones behind. For even where there is no open 
water for the ice to drift into, the cake that you are on may in a 
gale edge nearer and nearer to land by the crumpling of the ice 
between it and shore. 

In summer there had not been much open water here and seals 
are found in numbers in winter only under such ice as represents 
the water of the preceding season. As I have emphasized else- 
where, these sea deserts do not have any necessary relation to lati- 
tude. Heavy ice and absence of seals are merely evidence of the 
area being an eddy caused by lands or winds or whatnot. 

I was a little concerned, not knowing the size of this area, as 
to how soon we could get across it. But what concerned me more 
was the illness of two out of the four of us, Noice and Knight. 



614 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

At first I did not recognize the illness but noted merely a sluggish- 
ness and quarrelsomeness which was entirely foreign to Noice, at 
any rate, whom I knew from the previous year. They complained 
of numerous things, including the vanity of polar exploration and 
the general foolishness of doing hard work to no purpose. Later 
they came to me with a definite complaint that the food, the amount 
of which I had set when I realized we were in a sea desert, might 
be enough in quantity but there was something wrong with the 
quality, for they had never felt so "rotten" before. 

Now I questioned them closely about the previous winter, 
whereupon I learned the facts which made clear the condition that 
had been so mysterious in Charlie's case. It was scurvy that he 
had and these men were getting it, too, and with good cause. 

It seems that when the dilapidated sledges went to Winter 
Harbor the men agreed among themselves that while living on 
meat was all right when you had to, there was no need to do so now. 
They considered entirely unreasonable my order that they were 
to eat ovibos meat every day irrespectjve of what other food they 
had, and their resentment carried them to the other extreme. They 
confessed that "just for spite" they sometimes refrained from eat- 
ing meat when they would really have preferred it. The dietetic 
regulation had been carried out in about the spirit of schoolboys 
who do things for no other reason than that they have been told 
they must not do them. 

On approaching Winter Harbor the party had seen a large 
herd of ovibos and when Storkerson had wanted it killed, they 
begged off on the ground that there was plenty of pork and other 
things in Bernier's cache. While repairing the sleds they had lived 
on the Bernier groceries and had even fed the dogs with them, so 
that when they were ready to leave they had lowered the supply 
to the point where they could haul almost all the remainder with 
them and this they did. We had traveled northward from Liddon 
Gulf in two parties, with Charlie and Noice members of the one 
where I was not. On this section they had eaten nothing but 
groceries and a little dried ovibos meat, which probably has no 
antiscorbutic value, anyway. By the time I caught up to them 
at the floe edge they had been three months on this diet, which 
is long enough to bring on scurvy, as experience has repeatedly 
shown. 

If Charlie had told me these facts I should have diagnosed his 
case directly. Now there was no doubt about Noice, who was a 
good deal worse than Knight, for Knight had been eating a certain 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 615 

amount of fresh meat and fish on the Bear. On the way north 
with Gonzales, Knight had lived entirely on groceries and since 
joining me he had lived in the main on groceries and dried meat. 
It was reasonable to suppose that his ailment was the same as 
that of Noice. 

Under the belief that the pemmican found at Winter Harbor 
was a more condensed food than the dried meat, Castel's party 
had been eating dried meat and saving pemmican. For similar 
reasons we now found ourselves with nothing on hand that had any 
antiscorbutic properties. The seals killed at the shore lead would 
have cured three men of scurvy many times over, providing the 
meat had been eaten raw or underdone, but (not suspecting that 
scurvy was pending) I had had them fed to the dogs because the 
groceries and dried meat were more portable. 

It was before I diagnosed the cases of Noice and Knight as 
actual scurvy that on April 26th [1917] I made up my mind to turn 
back, although I did so on the basis of their evident indisposition 
which seemed serious when taken together with the lack of seals. 
When I realized the disease was scurvy, which was the same evening, 
I saw that the situation was serious. The nearest land was Cape 
Isachsen, some one hundred and twenty-five miles away, where the 
shore floe promised seals whenever the weather was suitable, and 
where caribou were to be expected on the land. It was six or seven 
hundred miles to our base at Kellett or to the Eskimos of Victoria 
Island, although that consideration is really not material, for it was 
unthinkable that one could go so far before stopping to get the men 
well. 

At first we thought we might be able to follow our trail towards 
Borden Island and that the ease of doing so would make up for its 
greater distance, but at the end of two days we found keeping the 
trail to be impossible, not because we could not find it (for there 
had not been a great deal of ice movement) but because there had 
been so much pressure that heavy ridges or open water lay across 
it, compelling us to go several miles to one side, with the result 
that we lost too much time. 

We now made up our minds to strike for Isachsen and made 
steady progress towards it, although a little slower each day as the 
disease developed and the men weakened. The weather was very 
bad for sealing, thick and blizzards. One seal was seen and fired 
at by Noice but not secured. Some days brought special difficul- 
ties. May 4th, for instance, we spent eight hours of hard work in 
cutting loose a corner of ice to make a raft for ferrying across 



616 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

a lead, and were defeated at the end by ice movement and forced 
to remain in camp.* Ice movement during the night allowed us 
to proceed in the morning and for some time we had only the 
ordinary obstacles of rough ice. 

Noice was eventually compelled to ride all the time except 
when we came to a pressure ridge where we had to make a 
road with pickaxes. Here he would walk a little, although I think 
not more than one or two hundred yards at a time. By May 10th 
when we got to the shore lead Knight's disease had developed so 
that, although he had not been forced to ride, he was no longer 
able to be of material help. Still, he certainly did his best, and 
it was admirable what fortitude both he and Noice showed and 
how hard they tried to be of use. 

At the shore lead we found a new pressure ridge through which 
it took us several hours to make a road with pickaxes. A 
few days before, this would have been all level, young ice two or 
three miles in width that was now a conglomerate of broken frag- 
ments several hundred yards across. That level ice would have 
given us good sealing, but there would be none now until the 
wind changed and the water opened. The only thing to do was to 
go ashore and look for caribou. 

May 11th we reached land after traveling six hours over the 
shore floe. The teams then proceeded another six miles along 
shore while I hunted overland. So far as I recall, I did not see a 
single blade of grass and the district struck me as the most barren 
I had ever entered. There was not a track or trace of anything 
for food, and it was a little hard to be cheerful that evening. 
Noice could not walk, Knight apparently would not be able to 
walk more than one or two days more, the dogs were getting more 
tired every day, for latterly their food had been insufficient. We 
had left for ourselves food for six days at half rations, which 
was really food for three days. The dogs had food for about the 
same length of time, consisting, however, entirely of wornout 
boots and other skin clothing. It has often happened before that 
we had to feed skin clothes to the dogs; in fact we recognize it 
as one of the advantages of skins over woolens that they can be 
eaten in emergencies. With fuel to cook them, skins are not dis- 
agreeable unless one has too much imagination, for they are 
merely tasteless — insipid is the least complimentary term they 
deserve, if they have no hair on them. 

*We did not use our sled-boat because its canvas cover was now nearly 
worn, out. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 617 

The next day the program was the same. Emiu with the two 
sick men and the teams would follow the land from point to point 
and make as good a day as he could while I hunted overland. On 
crossing the first bay and landing beyond I immediately found, 
abundant vegetation. Not long after that I saw old caribou tracks 
and presently some that were fresher, and within three or four 
hours after leaving camp I was on the nearly new trail of a band 
of about twenty. There was no wind so that it was not safe to 
follow this trail, for the animals might hear me. I hunted most 
carefully, going away from the locality where I supposed the cari- 
bou to be and examining it with the glasses from high hills two 
or three miles away. Eventually I saw them and made my ap- 
proach. 

It occurred to me when I saw some of the animals on top of a 
hill that they might have been seen from the sleds, and I hoped the 
men would have the self-control not to try to get them for them- 
selves, for nothing is more likely to lead to failure than an uncon- 
certed attempt by two or more men from different directions to get 
at a band of caribou. One man always hunts them better than two 
and the drawback of two hunting separately is greatly multiplied if 
they have no plan of cooperation. After I had devoted much of the 
day to the approach and had commenced shooting, I heard shots 
from above and behind me. Evidently this was Emiu, who could 
not hit very many from the distance from which he was shooting. 
Still he was doing no harm. Between us we killed the entire twenty- 
three. 

When it was over he came and told me what was really an ad- 
mirable story. They had seen the caribou from the ice five or six 
hours before and the sick men had urged him to go and try for 
them, saying that I might overlook them. He said he had been 
reluctant to go, knowing- my views on the inadvisability of two men 
going after the same band, but as the others insisted, he went. 
But instead of going to look for the caribou he went to look for 
me. He eventually found me but could not get to me without 
going near the caribou, so he had to make a wide circle, with the 
result that he had been unable to catch up. During the last hour 
he had been crawling two or three hundred yards behind me, 
never daring to make enough noise to attract my attention and 
with the idea merely of keeping so far behind that he was sure 
he would not interfere with my success. 

Knight and Noice had pitched camp out on the ice. We hur- 
ried out to them with merely some of the tongues which we cut 



618 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

out without stopping to do any skinning. These I knew would 
make a good beginning towards the cure, by cheering them up as 
well as by their curative properties. Tongues are tasteless raw 
and exceptionally palatable cooked, so that we had them under- 
done as a compromise — a little cooked for palatability, a little raw 
that they might have curative power. After the meal we moved 
inland and established what we called "Camp Hospital." 

The sick men were now put upon the following diet: In the 
morning meat enough for a small meal was boiled and eaten slightly 
underdone. There was enough broth left over to furnish something 
to drink for the rest of the day, and any food eaten beyond the 
boiled breakfast had to be eaten raw. It is one of the charac- 
teristics of scurvy, as I have seen it, that the appetite is equal to 
normal if not greater, and there is no serious digestive disturbance 
until perhaps in the late stages when death is approaching. I could 
rely on the appetite of my patients, therefore, to lead them to the 
eating of plenty of raw meat. This was eaten by preference slightly 
frozen, at a hardness analogous to that of hard ice cream. No meat, 
as I have said, is ever tough if eaten raw. 

The only trouble about our diet now was lack of fat. The 
marrow in the bones of these caribou was good and we let the 
sick men have nearly all of it. Then, after putting the camp in 
good shape and making sure that the invalids were able to take 
care of themselves, Emiu and I set off inland looking for fatter 
caribou. The ones we had killed were all calves, yearlings or 
cows and we were going to try to find bulls. I knew now it was 
only a matter of time till everything would be well, and was able 
to dismiss worry and to really enjoy the next two weeks. 

We had more sunshine than is usual at this time of the year 
and, although the bulls were not found, the older cows were fat 
enough so that by reserving the marrow and suet for ourselves we 
had enough and it was only the dogs that suffered. They had their 
bellies full of lean meat continually and it was not so entirely lean 
as to make them sick, as I have known it to be on the Canadian 
and Alaskan mainland where caribou have been really lean. We 
examined the land, took observations to get a good rate on our 
watches, and altogether spent a pleasant and moderately profitable 
time. We verified what Castel had noted the previous year on his 
way south from Cape Isachsen, that Cape Isachsen does not lie on 
a peninsula as represented on the maps, but on a small island, 
for there is a strait running through between the Queen Louise 
Fjord and Deer Bay of Isachsen. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 619 

The men made such rapid recovery as to surprise me. When 
Emiu and I had been away two or three days and had secured the 
first lot of really excellent marrow bones, I sent him back with 
these and received a joint letter from Noice and Knight saying 
that they were now well enough to travel. Three or four days 
had eliminated one of the chief symptoms of scurvy, for they were 
now as cheerful as they had been gloomy. Their willingness to 
travel was, however, no more than an indication of a frame of 
mind, for I knew they would not for something like two weeks 
have the strength to walk ten miles a day. And so it proved, for 
when we started May 27th and made a ten-mile day, we could do 
so only by their riding alternately, each being able to walk about 
five miles. As we proceeded south their strength increased and in 
a week they did not need to ride at all. A month from our killing 
of the twenty-three caribou they were in perfect health with no 
sign of the disease left, except that their gums which had receded 
badly from the teeth had failed to regain the normal position. 

Our course was direct for the northwest corner of Lougheed 
Island. We could travel with little meat and keep the sledges 
light for the convalescents, for the abundance of Lougheed Island 
had been revealed. The going was generally through fog, the sky 
was thinly clouded, and the light although diffused was of excep- 
tional and continued brightness, so that we were delayed by snow- 
blindness. We reached Lougheed Island the last day of May and 
that day had the first trouble of the year with water on the ice. 
For the present this was confined to the vicinity of land. Lougheed 
Island was already more than half bare of snow, although the. thaw 
had not commenced on the uniform whiteness of the sea ice. 

We feared, as it proved wrongly, that the sealing might not be 
good between Lougheed Island and Melville Island nor the hunt- 
ing on the northeastern peninsula of Melville Island. Accordingly, 
we took care now to load up the sledges with caribou meat. Part 
of the time we traveled overland for greater convenience in hunt- 
ing. June 7th we saw the first new-born caribou calves. Con- 
trary to the experience of the summer before, there were now 
many wolves on the island and the caribou were continually on the 
alert. It is not often that I shoot caribou at more than three 
hundred yards, but this time I shot several at ranges varying from 
four hundred and fifty to six hundred yards. This long-range 
shooting, especially with a moderate or strong breeze, gave a greatly 
increased percentage of misses, so that under these conditions we 
could not long have maintained our record of averaging more than 



620 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

a hundred pounds of meat to the cartridge. There was no reason 
now, unless it were pride, for trying to maintain that record, for we 
were on the homeward journey of the last exploratory trip and 
expected to reach Kellett easily in time for connecting with our 
ships which would get us out into the Pacific and home within 
three months. 

Emiu had been off hunting the day before this and brought 
home his pack bag full of coal. He had found a vein of it in the 
side of a hill. The next day he went with Knight to investigate 
the find and to bring home a load, and they discovered what 
Knight described as a "hill of coal" a few hundred yards from 
Emiu's discovery vein. Knight said that but for the absence of 
any sign of a railroad one would think that the coal had been 
brought there and dumped in a heap from a trestle. We could not 
fancy what geological forces had brought together this heap of 
surface coal, but if its origin was a mystery, its utility was evi- 
dent. We began at once to weave around it all sorts of romantic 
plans for future exploration. We could travel here with confidence 
from afar with one or two dog teams. We could kill caribou and 
seals in the summer, in the fall we could put up snowhouses and 
line them with caribou skins, we could burn coal during the winter, 
and in the spring we would have a base better by several hundred 
miles than any we had had for exploring the field that most inter- 
ested us to the northwest. 

For Noice and me it was exasperating to realize that this coal 
mine was no more than ten miles away from where we had spent 
the previous summer with nothing for fuel but the caribou fat 
which we would so much rather have used for food. We should 
probably have been no better off now for the feasts of a year ago, 
but with human illogicality in such matters we kept wishing and 
wishing again that we had known of this coal to boil our meat with. 
Now that I am farther removed from the scene I am rather glad 
we did not find it, for we learned how inconsiderable a hardship 
it is to be so sharply limited in fuel. I had always thought that 
an island in which there was practically nothing to burn would 
be an unpleasant place to spend the summer, but in looking back 
and talking it over we find that all of us have the most pleasant 
recollections of our stay in fuelless Lougheed Island in 1916. With 
fuel it would have been an arctic paradise. 

With sledges loaded with caribou meat and coal we now went 
on to our former summer camp so as to "tie up" the observations 
of this year with those of last. This was especially important, for 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 621 

we intended to travel rapidly to Winter Harbor on Melville Island 
and take observations at Parry's Rock, the one spot among the 
Canadian arctic islands that has been really well located. These 
observations at Parry's Rock would give us a certainty for our 
longitudes which would otherwise be wanting. 

"The unexpected always happens." It was the day we expected 
to arrive at the summer camp and I was following the coastline of 
which I knew every bend and bight. Now, when everything 
seemed plain sailing, I became careless because of that very fact 
and had an accident that came near being fatal. 

Our dogs were not in the best of spirits on their lean meat diet, 
and when I saw a seal from the camp on June 11th I tried to get 
it. The diffused light was so bright that I could scarcely see the 
eights of the rifle and I missed it. A little later I saw another. 
There was no water visible on top of the ice which was perfectly 
level. By the auktok method I was able to get within about two 
hundred yards after an hour of approach, and fired. His head 
dropped, showing that he had been killed instantly. According 
to the diary: "I started to run out to him and fell in a tide crack 
full of slush. I fortunately sank to my knee in a fairly solid 
snowbank just before getting my other foot in the water. Sank 
to my belt on the right side, but the slush was just thick enough 
so that my body and arms did not go through, as my weight was 
on my left leg that was sticking in the snowbank. Was eventually 
able to get a hold in the snowbank and climb up. Had my left 
foot come loose, I suppose I should have been drowned. The 
slush was the consistency of quicksand. Had I not dropped my 
rifle before starting to run, I should have lost it. 

"After getting out of the water I saw the seal had disappeared 
into his hole — slid in, as often happens. This would ordinarily have 
meant the loss of the animal, but he must have been exceptionally 
fat for I found him floating in the hole when I got there. The 
teams had started when I missed my first seal and were now half 
a mile offshore and half a mile ahead of me, waiting for Emiu who 
had gone after a seal he saw ahead — he failed to get it. Dragged 
my seal out to the teams, tied it behind the big dogs and we got 
to our summer camp of 1916 at 12 o'clock, noon. Distance ten 
or eleven miles." 

With our observations for time taken, we left Lougheed Island 
June 13th, traveling south so as to pass ten or fifteen miles west 
of the northwest corner of Bathurst Island, aiming to strike Mel- 
ville Island near Bradford Point. The wind was blowing strong 



622 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

from the north and helped us along. We were carrying skis, partly 
for possible use in the early spring when crusted snow overlies 
water that fills all the low places of the ice, although they were 
mainly of value as part of the frame of our sled-boat. I now put 
them on and found I could almost sail along before the strong wind, 
and the sleds were speeded so that the men could ride as much as 
they liked and we made excellent progress — ^twenty-seven miles in 
seven or eight hours. As yet there was no water on the ice after 
the land lay a mile behind. 

Many of the birds that intended to inhabit Lougheed Island 
had already arrived and relays of others kept flying over us north- 
ward. Tracks in the snow soon showed that we had once again 
come into bear country. In two days we received a visit. We 
had gone to sleep with a rifle lying at the tent door, as always. I 
was awakened by the barking of the dogs, stuck my head out and 
saw a bear coming at a gallop towards Emiu's team, which were 
strung out at six-foot intervals along a forty-foot rope. We could 
see from the snow later that the bear had been following our trail, 
and it seemed plain that when he was about a hundred and fifty 
yards off he saw the sleeping dogs and took them for seals basking 
along a tide crack. Apparently his opinion was not easily changed, 
for the dogs were tugging against their tie ropes and barking 
loudly, behaving as no seal ever did, and still he was running to- 
wards them as hard as ever. He was not much over fifty yards 
from them when I saw him, and about twenty-five yards when, 
half-blinded by the glare of the snow after the dark tent, I fired. 
The bullet struck in the shoulder, breaking the bone. The bear's 
momentum was so great that he turned a somersault and rolled 
more than half of the remaining distance towards the dogs. A 
second shot went only an inch or two from the heart but the bullet 
did not expand and he ran off on three legs. It had been one of 
the mishaps of the spring which I have neglected to mention that 
cur expanding-bullet cartridges were most of them left behind, 
steel-point ones having been substituted by mistake. We had filed 
the points off these so as to convert them into a sort of expanding 
bullet, but this did not always work. But it was only three or 
four hundred yards the bear was able to go before he had lost 
so much blood that he collapsed. 



CHAPTER LIX 

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OP EARLIER EXPLORERS 

AS usual when we crossed from one land to another we ran a 
line of soundings from Lougheed Island towards Melville 
Island. Ordinarily these are taken through the breathing 
holes of seals. The ice here, rather to our surprise, was in consid- 
erable part of this year's origin, and we formed the opinion even- 
tually that Byam Martin Channel is probably open nearly every 
year. In the narrow part near Bradford Point the ice was already 
in motion, although slight, because it had not yet broken up. We 
have never seen seals more numerous to the square mile of ice nor 
bear tracks thicker. The tracks crisscrossed in every direction and 
in some places there were paths and roads made by numbers of them 
either traveling together or following each other's trails. 

Following south from Bradford Point we kept a sharp lookout 
for beacons on the land and found one. Here we spent several 
hours digging around, hoping for a cylinder buried "ten feet true 
north" according to the rules of the Franklin Search, but found 
nothing. In general the land is rather rugged and because of the 
rocks there appeared to be less vegetation to the square mile 
than in Lougheed Island. There were frequent traces of caribou 
and we saw several bands, and cattle were also seen here and there, 
although not as many as around Liddon Gulf. Considering the 
abundance of seals and bears and the presence of land game, this 
may be considered a hunter's paradise. If the hunting is as good 
in the fall as in the spring, three or four hunters could easily sup- 
port a party of forty or fifty men throughout the year. 

The coal was gone and we were burning seal blubber. One 
day for an experiment we cooked with ovibos hair and wool. It 
had been raining and the hides were damp, nevertheless we had no 
trouble in boiling the pot holding about eight quarts of water with 
the hair and wool of one skin. In dry weather we could probably 
have cooked two or three pots to each hide. 

Near the southeast coast of Melville Island on June 23rd I 
saw what was new to me in animal behavior. Three big caribou 

623 



624 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

bulls were feeding quietly and near them were eight yearlings. 
When I was half a mile, away and my head was showing above 
a ridge, several of the yearlings started on a sudden run. At first 
I thought they had seen me, though that was really not possible, 
and when I looked at them through the binoculars I saw they were 
chasing a fox. Three or four of the yearlings chased it for two 
or three hundred yards and then returned to where the rest were 
feeding. The fox now waited a little, as if to see if the caribou had 
given up the game, and then ran in among them again and was 
chased by others. Sometimes the fox dodged in and out among 
them and when it had secured the interest of the yearlings and 
induced them to the chase, it would run around the three old bulls 
using them as a sort of protection from the yearlings. The old 
bulls paid not the slightest attention to either fox or yearlings 
and went on feeding quietly. I watched the game about half an 
hour, after which I mounted the ridge and approached till they 
saw me. The first to see me were the old bulls which ran ofi at 
full speed. They had perhaps a hundred-yard start over the 
young bulls which were, however, so much fleeter that they caught 
up and passed the old bulls within half a mile. I have seldom 
seen caribou run so far without stopping, but these must have run 
nearly a mile. After two or three stops the yearlings came back 
and approached within fifty yards of me several times. All ran 
with their mouths open, though chiefly at a trot after the first mile 
sprint. The big bulls kept their course for two or three miles and 
then commenced feeding. 

A beacon near the southeast corner of Melville Island I came 
upon on June 25th, about half a mile inland and a hundred feet 
above sea level. The monument had a total height of four or five 
feet, of which the base, about two feet, was a big rock, and in a 
crevice of the rock was a common fruit jar containing the follow- 
ing record: 

RECORD 

from 
C. G. S. "ARCTIC" 

"Know all men that on this date, 16th August, 1909, the Canadian 
Government Steamer Arctic passed here bound for Pond's Inlet. 

^'Remarhs: We anchored here on the 15th instant on account of the 
Byam Martin Channel being full of heavy ice. We wintered at Winter 
Harbor. Left 12th August. Ice just gone. We all well on board. 

"J. E. BERNIER, 
Commanding Officer." 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 625 

In the jar along with this record was a newspaper cutting de- 
voted to an account of the outfitting of Captain Bernier's expedi- 
tion. This was from some Montreal or Quebec paper and the 
date was probably about May 13, 1908, for that day is mentioned 
in the article as roughly contemporary with the writing of it. 
On the back happened to be another news item. It was a tele- 
graphic despatch from England quoting Sir Edward Grey as saying 
in Parliament that "an entente between England and Russia would 
make it practically impossible for any other European powers to 
go to war with each other." This was interesting reading in June, 
1917. 

We were now in the regular sailing waters which we should have 
traversed eastward through Barrow Strait and Lancaster Sound 
to the Atlantic had the Bear come to Melville Island the previous 
summer. On the map this looks like a roundabout and long route, 
but experience has proved it to be one of the easiest in the Arctic. 
Even in the old days of sailing ships, few had any great difficulty 
in getting in to Melville Island or out again. Even one which was 
abandoned in Melville Sound under circumstances for which the 
commanding officer has been greatly criticized, drifted safely, though 
there was no one to guide or take care, and was picked up in fair 
condition by an American whaler in Bafiin Bay the following year. 
This was one of two ships abandoned under a policy of mistaken 
caution, and the other one is the only ship, so far as I know, that 
has been lost in these waters. 

Reflections passed often among us of how pleasant it would 
have been to know that the Bear was waiting for us at Dealy Island 
or Winter Harbor. Summer had come and there was no doubt that 
the journey across Melville Sound to Banks Island where we had 
to go as one result of the Bear's not coming to us, would be exceed- 
ingly unpleasant through the deep water and slush. 

These considerations appealed to Knight with particular force, 
for the stories he had heard of wading through ice water made the 
prospect even more forbidding to him than it did to the rest of us. 
So often a description of "hardship" is more impressive than the 
experience itself. It is those who have never fasted who are 
afraid of being hungry, and those who have never frozen their 
faces who are in the greatest dread of doing so. His thoughts 
eventually loosened Knight's tongue as to various things he had 
hitherto kept partly or wholly secret, and he gave us now at last 
the full story of what had happened the previous summer on the 
Polar Bear. 



626 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

It seemed that on the Bear it was generally understood that 
Storkerson and I were benighted persons who were bent upon liv- 
ing like savages up in Melville Island. The rest of our people, 
even the Eskimos, were supposed to be held by us in Melville 
Island largely against their wills, and the work that we were doing 
there and to the north was said to be of no account, anyway, for 
nobody was interested in finding out whether there were more or 
less islands in that quarter. It had been decided after Wilkins 
left for the south and Storkerson for the north that the Bear would 
make no real attempt to get to us in Melville Island although she 
would make a pretense of doing so. So clear were the plans of 
not going north, no matter if ice were entirely absent from the 
straits, that at the time she made her alleged attempt to get north 
a hunting party was left behind in Deans Dundas Bay to put up 
caribou meat to be ready when she should return. 

Knight had begun to drop some hints of the real situation to 
Storkerson while we were on Melville Island but Storkerson did 
not understand fully then; and still less did I, for he did not tell 
me everything he learned from Knight. But during our spring 
journey Knight's mind had undergone a gradual change. On 
the ship he had allowed himself to be talked into half-sympathy 
with the malcontents, but now through his association with us 
he began gradually to appreciate the interest and adventure of 
the work we were doing and was now even ready to believe in its 
importance. He had also become a convert to the practicability of 
living off the country and was beginning to enjoy it. But our boots 
were getting worn out and every time his feet got wet he became 
more depressed at the thought of having to wade across Melville 
Sound and more resentful at the Bear for not being on the north 
side of it, as he now began to hint she could easily have been. 
Eventually he felt inspired to give the full story, which he did 
about as follows: 

The majority on the Bear came to the conclusion shortly after 
Wilkins left (in May, 1916) that I had no business to order her 
upon so dangerous an undertaking as the trip to Melville Island 
and that her party were justified in disobeying. It was further said 
that they had heard from Bernard Harbor that the Government 
had approved of Dr. Anderson's refusal to follow instructions of 
mine in 1914. (How such a rumor could have originated is a 
mystery, for Wilkins and Castel, the only arrivals from Bernard 
Harbor, denied having brought any such information.) During 
midsummer a depot of supplies had been landed on the east shore 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 627 

of Prince of Wales Strait opposite the Princess Royal Islands, 
under guardianship of Jim Fiji and some Eskimos, and some time 
after that the Bear steamed south a hundred miles against a head 
wind much of the way, and anchored in Walker Bay more than 
a month before the end of the ordinary season of navigation. 
From a high lookout hill back of his depot after the ship sailed 
south Jim Fiji watched the straits and reported that in a day or 
two what little ice there was disappeared and that he never saw 
any more the rest of the summer — five or six weeks at least. 
This Knight had on hearsay from Jim, but he knew personally that 
no ice had been in sight from anywhere near Walker Bay for 
more than a month after they anchored, and the season was un- 
usually warm. 

Confirmatory news as to the unusual favorableness of the sea- 
son came from Crawford's ship. They had been anxious to get 
in touch with the Bear. About the same time that the Bear went 
into winter quarters the Challenge had left Bering Straits. She 
came east along the north coast of Alaska, past Herschel Island 
and Cape Bathurst and up into Prince of Wales Straits, knowing 
that the Bear had wintered near Armstrong Point. They steamed 
about half-way up into the straits and, finding not a single cake 
of ice, concluded the Bear must long ago have gone to Melville 
Island. They then returned south and, believing that the Bear was 
not less than 200 miles north of them, went into winter quarters 
a few miles away from her. 

In general I am telling this story as it appeared to me at the 
time, giving each situation as it then seemed and without throwing 
upon it any light which was not then available. I shall depart from 
that policy here by saying that Knight's story was later on estab- 
lished by the sworn testimony of some of the men on the Bear and 
by the verbal report of the majority of the others. There was dis- 
agreement on certain points but in the main the story stands about 
as Knight gave it to us, except for the fact that Knight's presenta- 
tion led us to think that the Captain had been more or less the 
tool of some of the crew. A later investigation put more of the 
blame on him, where it must ofiicially rest, anyway, for the theory 
is that a captain is supreme commander of a ship and responsible 
for everything so long as he remains in command irrespective of 
what pressure or influence may have been brought to bear upon 
him. 

This unpleasant story belonged in the past and we tried to 
dismiss it from our minds. But it came up later in such connection 



628 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and with such force that it cannot be left out of this narrative 
without a fundamental falsification of it. We have the choice of 
placing the blame where it belongs or leaving the reader to lay- 
it on men to whom it does not belong. 

The depot left by Kellett the spring of 1853 at Dealy Island we 
reached on June 28th in the evening. Its location is indicated 
from afar by a monument on top of the highest part of the island 
that it must have taken even a large ship's crew a long time to 
build. Unfortunately I did not write a description of this beacon 
at the time, and still more unfortunately we had had on the whole 
trip no camera to take a picture with, for all our films had either 
been used or spoiled. As I remember it, there must have been 
originally a pyramid-shaped pile of boulders from fifteen to twenty 
feet on a side at the base and ten to fifteen feet high. This rock 
pile had been painted over to make it more conspicuous and many 
of the men had written their names with paint, scratched them 
in, or even chiseled them into the rock. Something had been wrong 
with the structure, for there had been a sort of landslide of rocks 
from one of the sides. From the center of the pile a pole rises 
up like the single mast of a ship. Altogether, it is beyond com- 
parison the most conspicuous monument in those parts of the 
Arctic over which we have traveled. As I hunted overland I had 
seen it the day before from a hilltop a distance of twenty miles. 

The depot itself was evidently made in summer and without 
an appreciation of the disadvantages of the location. The site had 
clearly been chosen because of the abundance of splintered rock 
suitable for building, and a house had been constructed. We 
measured it roughly, but I forgot to record the measurements and 
must rely on the mere impression that it was about forty or fifty 
feet long, fifteen or twenty feet wide, and the gables eight or nine 
feet at the ridge. It had been roofed over with boards and canvas 
and filled with stores which are described in the records as, "two 
hundred and eighty-eight days' provisions for sixty-six men." 
There were additional things, such as casks containing clothing, 
equipment in the nature of spades, axes, etc., a cooking oven, and 
several tons of coal. Of this last we used seventy-five or a hun- 
dred pounds for fuel both there and later, for we took some along 
when we left. It was a sort of powdered coal, pressed into bri- 
quettes, and burned well even in our blubber stove which had no 
provision for a strong draft. 

The disadvantage of the location is that the house stands under 
a cliff a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet high. In the fall 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 629 

the blizzards pile the snow over this cliff into a drift in the lee, 
so that the depot was probably buried out of sight long before 
Christmas of the first year. The weight of snow gradually ac- 
cumulated during the winter but, as the roof seems to have been 
stoutly braced, it may have withstood the strain until spring. 
That it should then endure was impossible with any structure of 
boards and planks, for as the snow became wet and granular with 
the summer thaws it would press on the roof with the weight of 
thousands of tons, for the drift there in early spring would not be 
less than fifty or seventy-five feet in depth. Naturally the roof 
caved in. When Bernier visited the depot in 1908 he found the 
roof gone and, not appreciating the reason, he replaced it with a 
new one which naturally collapsed the following winter. 

When we reached the house that evening we should hardly 
have found it but for the monument above, which guided us di- 
rectly. There was only a corner sticking out of the snowbank, 
although the rivers had been open on Melville Island now for weeks 
and most of the land was bare of snow. But these were excep- 
tionally warm days and we could almost see the house creep out 
of the snowbank, so that by the time we left there was less than 
a quarter of it still buried. 

We were greatly interested to find out the condition of the 
depot and examined it as the snow receded. There seemed to have 
been three layers of casks over much of the floor. Most of the 
casks in the upper layer have been broken. Those containing 
flour seem to have burst through expansion of the contents when 
moisture soaked in through the wood. Still, we found some flour 
barrels that had not been broken and one of these we opened. 
The flour inside was naturally dark, for in 1850 when it was 
ground in England the modern process of making white flour had 
not yet been discovered. It was dry but so hard we had to pry 
it out in chunks with our hunting knives. Pieces of it could, how- 
ever, be powdered between finger and thumb. It had a sour smell 
not very different from that of a can of yeast. The rest of us 
were not inclined to make bread of it but Emiu said he was 
hungry for hot cakes and so we let him try. Somewhat to our 
surprise, the sour smell disappeared entirely in the cocking and 
the pancakes proved excellent. 

Particularly we looked for sugar. After some search we found 
a barrel marked "Sugar," but on being opened it was found to 
contain unsweetened chocolate in cartwheels, varying in thick- 
ness from an inch and a half to more than two inches and about 



630 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. Some of this was badly 
molded but there were entire disks in nearly perfect condition 
and the centers of even the moldy ones were good. Later when 
we found a barrel of sugar it proved to be syrup, brown, with 
more of a tang than is common now in sugar — a slight but agree- 
able burnt taste. Evidently moisture enough to liquefy the sugar 
had soaked in through the wood. By digging deep we were able 
to get some undissolved sugar from the bottom. Both Noice and 
Knight considered themselves expert in candy making and for a 
day they made chocolate and chocolate candy by combining the 
sugar and chocolate in various proportions. 

Barrels of potatoes and other dried vegetables were all spoiled. 
The hard bread we did not find. It was probably in the bottom 
tier, and the two lower tiers were so embedded in solid ice that 
it was only a few barrels of the second tier we were able to get at. 
One article of food was better than fresh, a small barrel of cur- 
rants, damp enough so that practically they were soaked in wine. 
On top where they were dry, the sugar had come out of them and 
crystallized. They were the most delicious currants we ever tasted, 
although originally they cannot have been of very good quality, 
as we judged from their size and the fact that they were not very 
clean. In fact, there was a good deal of gravel and sand mixed 
with them, but they were the best thing we found and we carried 
away forty pounds. 

Probably boots and clothing had been in some of the boxes 
the fragments of which were lying around. It may have been 
Bernier's men but more likely polar bears that had scattered these 
on the ground around the house and in heaps inside it, so that it 
was impossible to tell how they had been packed. But other con- 
tainers had not been opened. We found a barrel of pea jackets, 
inside of which was a package marked with the name "Lieutenant 
Hamilton." The two or three jackets on the outside were decayed, 
but some on the inside of the package were in perfect condition 
and appeared to be made of better broadcloth than one can buy 
nowadays. They were shining and silken and could well have 
been worn by any dandy in a masquerade. 

There were barrels of underwear where, to our surprise, the 
wool was in much better condition than the buttons. These were 
large old-fashioned horn buttons and came to pieces, though the 
thread still held and the garments were sound and clean. Jer- 
seys and woolen stockings were also in good condition and a barrel 
of mittens were perfect. The men at my suggestion took a pair 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 631 

of mittens each, and asked to take each a pea jacket and a sweater, 
and this was agreed on condition that when we came to Banks 
Island and had to abandon the sleds they would carry the articles 
themselves, a thing they readily promised to do. 

There should have been a quantity of salt meat in the depot and 
barrels of it may have been in the lower tiers. One small barrel 
had probably contained either brandy or rum. The bung was gone 
and it had been empty for many years, possibly since prior to 
Captain Bernier's visit. There were tinned vegetables and meat 
in abundance although we did not see them till the last day, for 
they were in that part of the house which was just appearing from 
underneath the snow. These were large tins holding perhaps five 
pounds each and painted red. They were then marked in a dif- 
ferent color paint with the names "carrots," and "mutton." Doubt- 
less there were other varieties farther down. We opened several 
of the cans, and while they were not obviously spoiled we were 
afraid of them. We were especially interested in the mutton and 
opened three cans, the contents of which we later threw away out- 
side the house. They did not smell like the tinned mutton of to- 
day, but I have thought since that this may have been due merely 
to the different processes employed at that time. 

The night before we left, my favorite dog Hans got loose and 
was sleeping down by the depot in the morning. I became in- 
stantly fearful that he might die from ptomaine poisoning if he 
had eaten the tinned mutton. Sure enough he had eaten it. It was 
not possible he could have finished the whole fifteen pounds but the 
lot was gone so he must have buried some of it, a trick in which he 
was an adept. He was round as a barrel from overeating and 
disinclined to move for that reason, but otherwise there was no 
sign of ill effect. 

We concluded that something between one-third and one-half 
of the food, clothing and equipment left in the depot was still in 
usable condition, with certain things, such as the currants and 
mittens, as good as new, and others, such as sugar, quite as whole- 
some as ever although not in perfect condition. 

Two days only were to be spent at the depot but on the second 
day Emiu was taken violently ill — acute indigestion from over- 
eating and not, I believe, from the food being spoiled. Between 
"hot cakes," eaten with ovibos fat and syrup, and various kinds of 
candies made by Knight and Noice, it was a wonder that Emiu 
was the only one afflicted. 

From the camp we could see ovibos herds grazing in various 



632 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

directions. There was coal in the depot and we had seen some 
coal float on the beach farther east. The depot stores were in 
fair condition. On the basis of these circumstances Noice, who 
had become a great enthusiast for exploration, proposed that we 
should spend the summer here and the following winter, making 
an additional ice journey to the northward in the spring. He had 
made a similar proposal up in Lougheed Island after we found the 
coal mine. The idea was attractive and I had thought a good deal 
about it on my own account, but our dogs were not so good as 
formerly through the mere fact that the best of them had become 
old in our service — they had been middle-aged when we got them 
four years before and a dog of eight is well past his prime. Then 
there was nothing here out of which we could build sledges and 
one of ours was now so rickety that we were able to haul on it 
little but bedding. We usually carried about two hundred pounds 
of fresh meat with us, provisions for four or five days, and that 
with the cooking gear and heavier articles was now all on one 
sled. I was forced to the reluctant conclusion that we had better 
adhere to the plan of overtaking our ships at Kellett and sailing 
home. 

There was an alternative which I had seriously considered. 
When we were on the east coast of Melville Island I asked the 
men whether they would be willing to cross straight south for the 
northeast corner of Victoria Island where we would pick up Stor- 
kerson's records, ascertain if he had finished the mapping and 
finish it if he had been unable to do so. We would then spend 
the summer in Victoria Island, cross Dolphin and Union Straits 
in the fall and traverse that country, with which I was so familiar 
from the year spent there in 1910-11, to Bear Lake and the Macken- 
zie and thence out to Edmonton and Winnipeg. Emiu was home- 
sick for Nome but the two white men agreed willingly. I thought 
the matter over for three or four days but finally gave it up. 

Because of Emiu's illness we could not leave Dealy Island before 
the evening of July 4th. Two days later we reached Bernier's 
house about a mile from Parry's Rock at Winter Harbor. Here 
we spent two days getting several good sets of observations. We 
then followed the coast southwest to the vicinity of Cape Providence 
and took a course which, according to the map, should have brought 
us to Point John Russell on Banks Island but really bore well east 
of Peel Point on Victoria Island, for, as our later observations 
showed. Point Russell is wrongly placed on the map by nearly a 
full degree of longitude. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 633 

The soundings turned out to be strikingly similar to the ones 
taken on our ice journey north of Borden Island. Seven miles 
from shore we got four hundred and eleven meters and all the way 
across the sound the depth varied slightly up and down, with a 
maximum of five hundred and two meters near the middle, which 
happened to be the exact depth of the last sounding taken on the 
ice journey a hundred and twenty-five miles northwest of Cape 
Isachsen. Were we at that time in the middle of a sound some- 
what wider than Melville Sound? We think it likely but only 
further exploration can tell. 

Crossing Melville Sound was no more fun than we thought it 
was going to be. The water channels were deep, the dogs swam 
and the sleds floated. The rounded hummocks were slippery and 
we hardly dared to climb on them out of the water for fear the 
sleds might slide sidewise and be upset, and we had to keep hold 
of the dogs to restrain them from scrambling out of the icy water 
and up on the protruding knobs of ice. Part of the time it rained 
and on July 21st my diary says that we had the heaviest rain 
I had ever seen in the Arctic. 

Occasionally there would be stretches of a few miles where all 
the thaw water had run off into a neighboring lead or crack. This 
was good traveling in being nearly level and nearly dry but the 
ice needles were sharp as knives. They made holes in our boots 
and lacerated the feet of our dogs. A new pair of our ugrug-soled 
boots would have been good for perhaps a week or two of this 
sort of walking without patching, but the dogs' boots of thin 
canvas used to wear out in half a day, and even with the closest 
watching one dog or another would get footsore. Those that worked 
the hardest would get sore the quickest, for a dog that is hauling 
with all his strength steps twice as hard upon the needle points 
as one that is merely walking. 

One of our best dogs was Sapsuk. He had belonged to Captain 
Bernard's team and was a favorite not only with the Captain but 
with Thomsen who drove him later, and in fact with any one who 
knew him. Now his feet were sorer than those of any other dog, 
so we slipped him from his harness and allowed him to follow 
behind. Later other dogs became footsore and eventually there 
were four of them loose, following behind. Sapsuk kept close to 
the sleds but some of the others would lag a mile. 

One day when Victoria Island was already in sight we were 
traveling along with Sapsuk following behind. I was ahead as 
usual and noticed a polar bear coming from the direction of Banks 



634 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Island. The teams were stopped and I lay down on an ice hum- 
mock to wait, for he was heading to pass us at a distance of two 
or three hundred yards. Unfortunately he climbed over a hummock 
that brought him against the skyline. One of the dogs saw him and 
a moment later they were all barking. The bear was behind an- 
other hummock and he must have stood still a while, listening. 
His mind was soon made up that there was danger in the wind, and 
the next I saw of him he was going off at a lumbering gallop. At 
about four hundred yards from me he paused and I fired. I learned 
later that this bullet had gone through his shoulder, breaking the 
bone but missing any vital part. He disappeared but reappeared 
promptly, going slowly now and stopping frequently. In ordinary 
course his end would have come in a few minutes with a second shot. 

My attention had been centered on the bear and the men had 
had their hands full with the teams. Nobody had noticed Sapsuk, 
and the first thing any of us knew he was half-way to the bear. 

We have discussed elsewhere the Eskimo method of hunting 
bears with dogs and I have given my reasons for never following 
it. Now we were going to have a case of it in spite of ourselves. 
The first alarm that occurred to me was that Sapsuk had never 
been after a bear and would not know how to take care of himself. 
We had one or two dogs which had been bought from the Victoria 
Island Eskimos and recommended as good bear dogs. There 
were also one or two others that were remarkably agile and at 
the same time far less endeared to us than Sapsuk. We turned 
these loose hastily, hoping that they might get to the bear first. 
No such luck. The bear was going slowly and Sapsuk went for 
him straight as an arrow. He had often eaten bear meat and 
apparently recognized him not as a fighting animal but merely as 
food. I could see with the glasses that he ran up to the bear in 
the most naive way and bit into him, apparently with the idea that 
he was beginning a meal rather than a fight. The bear turned to 
give him one blow and poor Sapsuk lay paralyzed and flat on 
the ice. A minute later the other dogs caught up and surrounded 
the bear about a quarter of a mile away, but apparently they had 
taken a lesson from Sapsuk's case, for none of them dared go 
nearer than four or five yards except one of the Victoria Island 
dogs. 

The bear was losing strength and was not going fast, but the 
dogs did not really hold him and he was making progress away 
at the rate of three or four miles per hour. I must say, however, 
that the one Victoria Island dog was admirable and had there 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 635 

been two or three like him they could have held the bear without 
the slightest danger to themselves. 

It seems that in Nome where Emiu had learned his dog-driving 
from white men it is generally the custom to re-name Eskimo dogs 
with white men's names. The rest of us rather preferred when we 
bought a dog to let him keep his Eskimo name but Emiu felt 
otherwise. He gave the name ''Jack" or "Brownie" or ''Towser" to 
every dog that he had anything to do with. He had been driving 
this dog and now his name was Tip. 

Tip was not in the least excited. He did not even bark. If the 
bear faced in his direction, he would make a strategic retreat and 
keep a distance of at least five yards. But the moment the bear 
turned away towards another dog, he would run up and nip him 
in the heel, not viciously as an excited dog might have done, but 
sharply and skilfully like a good workman at once confident in his 
skill and proud of it. These bites were evidently painful, for 
the bear always turned quickly but he never could turn quite 
quickly enough to get a blow at Tip, who by then was standing so 
far away and looking so unconcerned that the bear apparently 
was in doubt which dog to blame. But Tip had no efiicient sup- 
port. The other dogs barked a great deal and then approached 
from the wrong aspect so that several of them had narrow escapes 
from the paws. 

All this was not half so long in the doing as it has taken me to 
tell it and was seen besides from a distance. I had to get nearer 
for firing to be sure not to hit a dog, for one or another was con- 
tinually on the far side. At a hundred yards I lay down and 
watched my chance, and when the dogs were momentarily out of 
the way sent the final shot. 

The bear fell perhaps half a mile away from where Sapsuk 
had fallen. Sapsuk was no longer in sight but there was no dif- 
ficulty in following the bear's blood trail back to where he lay. 
On his skin the wound showed as two or three deep scratches but 
the blow had struck in the small of the back and his hind legs were 
paralyzed. I felt him over carefully and could not see that any 
bones were broken so that the case did not appear fatal. We 
camped right there for the night and I made him a comfortable 
bed of the bear's skin. The next morning he was unable to stand 
up but appeared otherwise so well that we began to hope for him. 
Accordingly we made him a nest in Emiu's sled and took him 
along. 

Our course was taking us much too far east, so we traveled west 



636 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and eventually landed at Point John Russell, under great difficulty, 
however, for within a mile of land the ice was perilously rotten. 
When we finally got to the actual water we were able to find a 
loose cake of ice large enough to be used as a ferry although not 
for the whole party. We put some of the gear and two or three 
dogs on at a time and made several trips until everything was 
landed on some grounded ice from which it was possible to wade 
to the beach. 

On the Admiralty chart the land is very much elongated out 
to Point John Russell so that it is at the end of what may be called 
a peninsula. In reality, we found no such formation and it was 
impossible, to tell where Point John Russell might really be, the 
coast curving so uniformly and gradually. This was my first visit 
to the locality but Knight had been there before and knew what 
Storkerson's party had decided to call Point John Russell, though 
they had no more evidence to base their decision upon than we. 
They had seen this point only in winter but had nevertheless sus- 
pected that there might be a good harbor. We had the finest sort 
of opportunity now to judge. 

The harbor was first reported to me by Storkerson the spring of 
1916 in Borden Island as a suitable place for the Bear in case she 
could get that far up the straits but could not cross to Melville 
Island. He thought she could lie here safe while watch was kept 
from a five hundred-foot lookout three or five miles inland. From 
such vantage in clear weather it would be possible to see half-way 
across the sound and to judge the condition of the ice or to deter- 
mine its absence. It is certainly a strategic position for any such 
undertaking. Next after Storkerson it was Knight who described 
this harbor and who now guided us to it, and as I had already given 
Storkerson's name to the great bay on the west coast of Banks 
Island I called this Knight Harbor. It is essentially a long sandspit 
running out from the land, not very different in configuration from 
the well-known whaleship harbor at Herschel Island. There is 
absolute protection from every wind except southeast, and even 
from this wind there is fair shelter. The water was probably deep 
because there had been big ice cakes inside the harbor the spring 
of 1916. They were so big that they could not have melted away 
in a summer, but they were gone and must have floated off. Fur- 
thermore, there were now several seals lying scattered over the 
harbor ice which is a fair indication of depth, for I have seldom 
found seals lying on ice unless the depth was three or more fathoms. 

We could take our sleds no farther, and it took several days to 










McClure's Record Telling of His Discovery of the Northwest PassagbJ 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 637 

convert the boat cover and other pieces of canvas into pack bags 
for all the dogs, and into bags in which we ourselves could carry 
whatever we desired. While the men were busy at this I hunted, 
seeking both food and information. I was especially anxious to 
determine the location of Point John Russell, for I suspected that 
Captain McClure had left a record there when he made the sledge 
journey in the fall from the Investigator, lying near the Princess 
Royal Islands, to this vicinity from which he had seen to the north 
open water which he rightly identified as Melville Sound. This 
meant that he had discovered the Northwest Passage. 

On July 26th I had been inland and was returning to the coast, 
for once without any thought of McClure's beacon. I had taken 
it for granted that it must have been at some conspicuous point. 
But I was half a mile inland following a gravel bank twenty or 
thirty feet high, on the north side of a small creek which has its 
mouth about three miles south of Knight Harbor, when I almost 
stepped upon a brass cylinder lying on the level ground. There 
was not a sign of a monument though there were three or four 
small stones scattered about. None of them would have weighed 
over ten or fifteen pounds. Apparently the beacon must have been 
a heap of sand in which these few stones were included. The wind 
has since blown the sand away, leaving this spot as level as any 
other. But the stones and the brass tube the wind could not move. 

The top had been poorly soldered and the wind had blown the 
cylinder full of sand which was now soaking wet. There was 
small hope of finding the record in good condition. I took it to 
camp, opened the cylinder carefully, removed the wet wad of paper 
and dried it before attempting to unroll it, and when it was even- 
tually opened I was surprised to find it legible with the exception 
of probably less than half a dozen words. It runs as follows: 

"This Notice was deposited by a Traveling Party from Her Britan- 
nic Majesty's Discovery Ship Investigator who were in Search of the 
Expedition under Sir John Franklin which up to this date has not been 
heard of. 

"The Investigator wintered in the Pack N.E. four Miles from the 
Princess Royal Isles; upon the S.W. side of the large (word missing, 
paper torn) left a depot of Provisions. 

"The Crews are all well and in excellent Spirits, having escaped 
any sickness during the winter. 

"A Party discovered the North West passage by traveling over 
the Ice upon the 26th October last in Latitude 73° 31' N., Longitude 
(by Lunar) 114° 14' W. 



638 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

"It is requested whoever may find this will communicate the Same 
to the Secretary of the Admiralty, London. 

"Dated (several words illegible — perhaps ^safe and sound') Investi- 
gator frozen in the Pack, Latitude 72° 50', N. Longitude. 

"21 April, 1851, 

" McOlure (Signature partly illegible), 

"Commander." 

One extra day we spent to happy purpose. During our outfit- 
ing for the overland march Sapsuk had been improving so steadily 
that when everything was ready he was almost able to walk. We 
waited this extra day to let him gain a little more strength. 

Before departure we built a cairn on the site where I discovered 
the cylinder. It is not possible in sandy country to make a per- 
manent monument, but we had the advantage of building this in 
summer where McClure made his in winter, and ours will prob- 
ably last a little better. In the monument we left a copy of 
McClure's document, taking the original along with us, and added 
a record of our own, giving some information about what we had 
done and telling that we were on our way to Cape Kellett to over- 
take our ships and sail home. 

Near the beach where our camp had stood, about two miles 
south of Knight Harbor, we propped up our two sledges one against 
the other so they stood like bears on their hind legs, conspicuous 
for a long distance. Without having any reason to think that the 
things we left would be found by any one who would want to use 
them, we still packed up everything in the safest manner possible. 
We then made a platform between the two sledges and put most of 
the things upon this platform, protected as well as possible from 
rain. A few articles we left on the ground. Some books were 
among the things we had to abandon — Dickens' "Christmas Stories," 
Churchill's "Crisis," Bigelow's "Applied Biology," Mikkelsen's 
"Conquering the Arctic Ice." These were left behind either be- 
cause they were heavy or because we knew them almost by heart. 
And these others were carried on, either because they were lighter 
or more highly valued — Barham's "Ingoldsby Legends," Comte's 
"Fundamental Principles of Positive Philosophy," Boas' "Mind of 
Primitive Man," the Royal Geographical Society's "Hints to Trav- 
elers," and the American Nautical Almanac for 1916. 

Besides these books and a minimum of bed clothing we carried 
our sextant and artificial horizon, some spare notebooks, a manak, 
four large snow knives, and five hundred rounds of ammunition. 
The manak, snow knives, and large quantity of ammunition were 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 639 

carried on the general principle of always having with us an outfit 
adequate for supporting us at least a year. The heaviest single 
item was our geological collection, about thirty pounds. These 
were specimens gathered in the Ringnes Islands, Lougheed Island, 
and on the east coast of Melville Island, including samples of coal 
both from Lougheed Island and Melville Island. 

Point John Russell by our observations is a degree farther west 
than the longitude given in McClure's record and upon the map. 
This is not surprising, especially in view of the parenthesis in his 
record which explains that the longitude was secured by a lunar 
distance observation. This is well known to be an inaccurate 
method of getting longitude and especially so if there is but one 
observation and that taken under conditions of discomfort, as prob- 
ably was the case with McClure. There could be little doubt of 
our observation, for not only were our watches keeping a satisfac- 
tory rate, but it was only a few days since we had left Parry's 
Rock, the only place in the North that is considered reliably lo- 
cated. It could hardly be supposed that our watches had varied 
enough since then to account for more than a small fraction of a 
degree. 

Judging from this discrepancy between the map and our ob- 
servations and also from the fact that the northeast corner of 
Banks Island is obtusely rounded instead of elongated to a narrow 
tip as the map shows, we concluded that the coast line stood in 
need of even such hurried rectification as we could give it. So we 
followed the coast when we made our start July 28th. As usual, 
I walked inland to get what knowledge of the country was possible. 
Knight and Emiu looked after the pack dogs and Noice took com- 
pass bearings along the coast and made a sketch as he went. They 
were to make only five miles the first day, as I did not expect our 
crippled dog to be equal to more than that. That evening I wrote 
in my diary: "Sapsuk hobbles along wonderfully and is said to 
have caused no delay, though he is very wobbly and does not walk 
as if he could go a hundred yards." 

The next day we made better progress and still Sapsuk kept up, 
and day after day he kept getting better so that our worries for 
him were over. 

At Dealy Island I had agreed that the men might take from the 
depot certain articles of clothing on condition that they would 
carry them themselves across Banks Island. But when we made 
our cache near Knight Harbor they had changed their minds and 
abandoned some of them; others they carried bravely at first, but 



640 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

before many days most of them were thrown away. A few things 
I had taken to serve the semi-scientific purpose of showing in 
what condition the Dealy Island depot had been found after sixty- 
four years, and these the dogs carried. There was also a sweater 
intended for Captain Bernard. 

After following the coast for four or five days I came to the 
conclusion that getting game near the straits was too difiicult and 
that we were being too much delayed. We could not in any event 
complete the east coast of Banks Island, so we did not seem justi- 
fied in carrying the survey farther. The all-important thing was 
to get to Kellett so that our ships would not have to wait for us 
too long. 

When we commenced our inland travel we fell in with a group 
of lakes, the largest of which Captain Gonzales had discovered in 
the early fall of 1915. We now found several other lakes and as- 
certained that the head of the big river which we had followed 
south from Mercy Bay in 1915 and could only cross after going 
a long way inland, was in one of these lakes, although some of 
them drain into Prince of Wales Straits. The journey was pleasant 
except for the need to hurry. Try as we would, we could not do 
more than average about ten miles a day. There were a few big 
dogs which could have done better even with packs of thirty or 
forty pounds, but most of the dogs were small and with packs 
of even twenty pounds they were played out at the end of ten 
miles. There was continual trouble with the packs of the little 
dogs, too, through their dragging in the water and through bunting 
against stones or inequalities of the ground. 

Thousands of owls have been within my sight in the North 
but I had never happened upon one of their nests. On this trip 
we found a nest almost every day, and being ignorant of the nat- 
ural history of these birds I was surprised to find the difference 
in size among the young. In one nest there were four birds, the 
smallest apparently hatched that day and the largest as big as 
the parent birds and able to fly away when I came near. In 
another nest were two eggs and three birds, the largest apparently 
half-grown. 

As on our other overland journeys across Banks Island, we 
found continued evidence of the presence of Eskimos in former years, 
chiefly in the form of ovibos skeletons, often ten or fifteen together, 
and stone depots in which ovibos meat had been temporarily kept. 
There were also tent rings of sod or stone. We saw inuksuit only 
rarely, indicating that the caribou had been unimportant in the 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 641 

dietary of these people as compared with ovibos. Towards the 
southwestern part of the island we began to find the feathers of 
geese that had been moulting this summer or last, and an abundance 
of goose bones around the campsites. None of the camps seemed 
of great age; certainly great age cannot be demonstrated. Prob- 
ably a century would cover the oldest. Most of them are from the 
period since McClure abandoned the Investigator, judging from 
frequent traces of the ship, generally in the form of splinters of 
painted boards. 

On August 13th when about eighty miles northeast of the Kel- 
lett base we found coal, or rather wood that was partly turned to 
coal. It was reddish in color and burned with a fragrant smoke. 
Without the heavy sweetness of incense, it was agreeable enough 
so that we stood in the way of the smoke to sniff it. As in Loug- 
heed Island, this "coal" was on the surface and easy to secure, 
though the quantity in evidence was not nearly so large. It out- 
cropped here and there from a belt about two hundred yards long 
north and south and ten to twenty yards wide. It was most abun- 
dant at the surface about a little knoll on which we built a small 
cairn, piling rocks and gravel on top of a heap of coal. There was 
mixed with it a great deal of fossil gum resembling amber, but 
the nodules found were never as large as an olive. 

The country was beautiful, with large level stretches of bottom 
lands. Caribou were moderately numerous but their traces were 
still more abundant. On the whole, this looked like an ideal site 
for a summer hunting camp and even for a winter camp if there 
were any object in living there, but it has not nearly the strategic 
value, from the point of view of an explorer, possessed by the coal 
mine in Lougheed Island. 

We were more than half-way across Banks Island and all was 
going well, including the recovery of Sapsuk which was now almost 
complete. It was a fine morning and we were camped where fuel 
was unusually abundant (Cassiope tetragona). There were several 
aluminum plates in our equipment each of which bore the mark of 
its user with whom it was optional to wash it, an option that had 
not been exercised for some time. This morning Emiu boiled 
some water to wash his plate with and suggested that he should 
wash everybody's plate. He was doing this when I left camp 
to hunt. 

Sapsuk, nearly well, was still exempt from carrying a pack, and 
remained at the campsite snooping around after the men with the 
pack dogs had started. When they had gone about a hundred 



642 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

yards it occurred to Emiu that he had left behind the greasy dish- 
washing rag and that Sapsuk might eat it. He ran back but 
was too late; the rag was gone. 

I learned this at camp time. From Emiu's account the rag 
was so large that Sapsuk's death seemed inevitable, but I did 
the only thing that could be done. He had not yet begun to feel 
the effects and his appetite was good. I fed him a large quantity 
of fat. Seal oil would have been better than the caribou suet, which 
was the only thing we had, but I am inclined to think the case 
was hopeless from the first. The next day he followed without 
trouble but the second he was very ill. I am rather a coward in 
such things, so I left camp without giving any instructions, know- 
ing that the men would do what had to .be done. Sapsuk was shot 
that morning. 

He is the only dog on the whole expedition that was lost on any 
of my journeys through any cause other than of the contagious 
dog "distempers." It was the bear, after all, that killed him, al- 
though indirectly, for had he been carrying a pack with the rest 
of the dogs he would have had no chance to remain behind in camp 
and pick up the rag that proved fatal. A contributing cause was 
that as usual we were limiting the dogs somewhat on the fat side 
of their ration. We gave them enough of meat that was not en- 
tirely lean for them to be fat and reasonably contented, but they 
were always eager for more fat and Emiu's housekeeping rag had 
naturally been tempting. 

Until after the death of Sapsuk we had been carrying along 
certain remnants brought from the Dealy Island cache — a little 
chocolate, a little sugar (syrup) and some split peas. Emiu was 
the only one in the party particularly fond of these and ate more 
than his share, with the result that he was now and then troubled 
with indigestion, probably chiefly due to the peas. These were 
split peas and looked perfectly normal but were tasteless and 
mealy, and some that were boiled for more than twenty hours 
refused to swell materially or break up. It was probably his last 
meal of these things that made Emiu so sick on the 16th that it 
did not seem advisable to have him travel. 

I had been thinking that if we reached Kellett by the 25th it 
would be time enough, for the ships, knowing that I might be on 
the way, would have no occasion to start before that time, when 
their only task was to go directly out, once they hove anchor. 
But the men were worried, especially Knight. He told me on the 
basis of two years of association with the Bear that, while he 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 643 

had no doubt the Sachs would wait up to the 25th and even later, 
he felt very sure that the Bear would "take no chances" and would 
start as soon as they saw any excuse for doing so. He reminded 
me that by my own appointment the captain of the Bear was senior 
officer in my absence and that he might order the Sachs to sail out 
also. I used to argue with Knight that there was no motive for 
anybody doing this, but he stuck to his point. The result was 
that I, too, began to be concerned about the situation and when 
Emiu could not travel on the 16th I decided to walk ahead. With 
the pack dogs we could not make more than ten or twelve miles 
in a day and at that rate it would take five days to reach Kellett. 

Before separating from the party I took an observation for 
latitude at noon August 16th and asked Noice to take time sights 
in the afternoon, for he had already had ample practice both in 
using the instruments and in making the computations. We did 
not have with us the nautical almanac for the current year and 
our computations were never intended to be anything more than 
approximate. They would all have to be checked up when maps 
came to be made on the basis of them. 

Of the prejudices with which I came North in 1906 I have 
succeeded in shedding most, but one I have never tried to get rid 
of — a disinclination to eat alone. There are numerous instances 
where I have been gone from camp thirty or more hours on caribou 
hunts, and on none of them have I ever eaten unless there was 
some one to share the meal. I expected now to walk without 
a break and without food to Kellett. This was a longer walk 
than I had ever attempted before and the men very thoughtfully 
had boiled some caribou tongues which I found in my pack bag. 
I first took them out to leave them behind but my companions 
seemed so- hurt that their forethought was not appreciated that I 
concluded I had better take them along. 

It was shortly after noon when I started, a beautiful Banks 
Island day. Fair weather continued up to seven or eight o'clock 
in the evening, when fog came on as it often does at night at this 
time of year. I now found it more difficult to keep a course, and 
about midnight the fog became so thick that I had trouble with 
the little lakes that are scattered everywhere. The ones of regular 
outlines were not so bad, although there is no doubt that I often 
turned to the wrong side, thus making the detour longer than nec- 
essary. But a real nuisance was to walk out on a peninsula on the 
assumption that the water to the right and left were two different 
lakes. On some occasions I had to go back as much as half a mile 



644 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

to get out of one of these traps. Towards morning it rained and 
there was sticky clay on the hillsides, so that the walking was 
pretty bad. It was uphill and downhill, too, continually. 

I was carrying between fifteen and twenty pounds — the boiled 
tongues, my rifle, a hundred rounds of ammunition (an excess of 
caution), the field glasses, my diary, two extra pairs of boots and 
several changes of socks. 

The morning of the 17th I had been walking steadily seventeen 
and a half hours and my feet were beginning to chafe. There is 
no such thing as getting tired on a long journey, or at least on 
such long journeys as ours. I had been steadily walking every 
day for months and could not have been in better form. It seems 
to be the general experience of long-distance walkers — it certainly 
is mine — that under such conditions the feet give out by becoming 
sore rather than through the muscles becoming tired. 

When the feet are getting sore the best remedy next to a rest is 
to change socks and boots, for new footgear presses on different 
spots and rests the chafing parts. I sat down beside a little stream 
of beautifully clear water, bathed my feet, put on new socks arid 
boots, and then ate one caribou tongue — perhaps half a pound. 
So far as I recall, this is the only thing I have eaten in the Arctic 
by myself, except some caribou marrow that I once tried, having 
often eaten it cold but wanting to know what it was like fresh from 
the animal. I don't know whether it was the idea of eating some- 
thing that still retained the warmth of life or whether it was the 
marrow itself, but that experiment made me ill. 

After about five more hours of walking, in the middle of a 
beautiful sunshiny forenoon I came to some apparently familiar 
hills. If my identification of these was' right, my course during 
the fog had been deflected and I was going to strike the coast 
twelve or fifteen miles southeast of our base. At first I thought of 
trending directly towards Kellett, but concluded that it would be 
interesting to see the ice conditions, and that one of our ships 
might even be lying in this vicinity, in case there were heavy 
massed ice up around Kellett. Wilkins had found such conditions 
in 1914. I accordingly kept on the same course to the coast. 

From the coast hills I had a clear view of the Kellett base across 
a bight a dozen miles away. My glasses showed that there was 
a single ship there. The ship puzzled me, for it had only one mast. 
This could not be the Bear nor the Sachs either, unless they had 
taken down a mast for repairs. Still there was a possibility of 
error, for the ship was broadside to the land and her two masts 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 645 

might be in direct line, one hiding the other, although it did not 
appear so, for I took the view to be slightly on the quarter. 

The added excitement of such unexpected conditions made me 
walk faster and part of the time I ran. It was just twenty-eight 
hours from the time I had left my party that I got down to the 
little lagoon half a mile east of our winter quarters. The distance, 
according to our astronomical observations, was about sixty-seven 
miles in a direct line, but the actual walking was probably ten or 
fifteen miles more than that, what with my confusion among the 
lakes with the fog and the detour to the coast east of Kellett. 

I thought then that it was a pity Robert Louis Stevenson had 
the bother of inventing a plot for his "Treasure Island." I found 
an equally good one ready for me here, all but the murders and 
the wooden leg, and even tragedy was not lacking. I shall tell 
the story not entirely as I understood it then but with certain side 
lights of later information. Part of it consists not of actual facts 
but of my interpretation of them, but it is the interpretation which 
I still retain after all the available evidence has been gathered. 
Probably no two men on the entire expedition would agree with 
me throughout, but there is no point on which several of them do 
not agree with me, nor are there any two others who agree en- 
tirely with each other. 

I came first to what proved to be the Sachs. She was lying broad- 
side on the beach, her foremast gone and the yards of the mainmast 
nowhere to be seen, nor her sails. Her high wheelhouse had been 
torn off and was a hundred yards up on the land where it was 
evidently being made into part of a dwelling. Captain Bernard 
could never have been guilty of such vandalism. He was too fond 
of his ship. I could have conceived of him going out in the night 
and setting fire to her, but his tearing her to pieces was unthinkable. 
Clearly whoever was in control was not Captain Bernard. 

Our old house was standing farther to the west and evidently 
uninhabited. But there was some one working at turning the wheel- 
house into a building. When I went up I found two men whom 
I had never seen before. They were Otto Binder, an American, 
and August Masik, a Russian, both from Nome. They had come 
east the previous year on the Challenge, and it was they about 
whom Captain Gonzales had told me as having a hunting camp on 
De Salis Bay on the southeast coast of Banks Island. Binder 
was the man who had gone to Kellett in the fall with the Kilian 
brothers and Masik had followed later. 

There are many branches to this story. I must tell first about 
the tragic death of Peter Bernard and Charles Thomsen. 



CHAPTER LX 

THE TRAGEDY OF BERNARD AND THOMSEN 

THE story begins with part of what Captain Gonzales had re- 
lated in Melville Island. When Thomsen had arrived at Kel- 
lett from Liddon Gulf the spring of 1916, he and Captain 
Bernard had decided upon a well-meant disregard of my orders. 
There was no man on the expedition more loyal than Bernard or 
more interested in its success. He had been commander and owner 
of the Sachs for many years, and aboard of her there had never been 
discipline but a sort of friendly and amiable anarchy. Apparently 
the Captain never expocted his own orders to be carried out except 
in the most general way, nor did he have a conception of carrying 
out orders in any other spirit. He tried to understand what was 
wanted and worked hard and faithfully towards its accomplish- 
ment, worked before breakfast and after supper, but always in 
his own way. 

It appears that when Thomsen came home and explained to 
Bernard what the situation was, they agreed that we would have 
great difficulty in Melville Island (as indeed we did) in getting 
along without more sledges than we had there. They decided that 
the sensible thing to do was for Thomsen to stay at Kellett until 
fall. During the summer Captain Pedersen would almost cer- 
tainly arrive with sledge material, primus stoves and other needed 
things. As soon as the material was in hand, Bernard would set 
to work building several sledges while Thomsen did the work around 
camp. Then with the first snow the two would start off for Mel- 
ville Island, bringing me as many sledges as they had been able 
to make and whatever useful things they could haul along. 

This was all against my orders but meant only for our success. 
This was a procedure which Captain Bernard thought would serve 
my ends better than the plans I had myself laid down. I know 
how he must have pictured to himself my rejoicing when they 
should arrive with all this unexpected and invaluable equipment. 
Had they arrived, our relief and rejoicing would doubtless have 
equaled anything that he could have imagined. No doubt there 
would have been no word said about Thomsen having disobeyed 

646 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 647 

instructions through not coming back the previous spring, or Ber- 
nard neglecting my directions to remain at the base at Kellett and 
to make no attempt to connect with Melville Island. I had framed 
my orders as I did because I felt sure that he could not succeed 
in bringing to me in Melville Island anything of value in time for 
use this year. His actual arrival in time would, he must have 
felt, show me to have underestimated the possibilities, thus silenc- 
ing any criticism. 

In August Captain Pedersen arrived with the Herman, and ac- 
cording to Captain Bernard's anticipation was able to give him 
material for two sledges. He also gave him many things useful 
although not so imperatively necessary. The mail he landed for 
the expedition is said to have been four or five hundred pounds. 
To me this would be the most interesting mail of my whole life 
probably, for my friends who for a year had considered my Martin 
Point ice party dead and the expedition a failure, had found out 
that we were alive and well and keeping on with our work. The 
letters that people write under such circumstances could not fail 
to be of moment; many of them would deserve to be treasured 
forever. 

After landing the supplies and mail^ Captain Pedersen went 
forty miles southeast along the Banks Island coast and landed two 
Eskimo families who were to remain there trapping in the interests 
of the H. Liebes Company of San Francisco, owners of the Herman. 
He then sailed southwest towards Cape Bathurst and Herschel 
Island. Somewhere on this route he had met the Challenge and 
given Crawford the information which Gonzales brought to us in 
Melville Island, that Thomsen was coming north to us during the 
winter bringing sledges. Apparently Captain Pedersen did not 
know, or at least he did not mention to Crawford, that Bernard 
was coming too. 

At Kellett Bernard set to work at once on the sledge-making 
while Thomsen hunted caribou and did other things to make the 
camp ready for winter. When the snow came and the ice along 
the coast was sufficiently strong for sledging, they made prepara- 
tions to start north. Part of these preparations was that they in- 
duced one of the Herman's Eskimo families to move up to our 
Kellett base temporarily to help with the work while Bernard and 
Thomsen were gone in Melville Island. Just before setting out 
Bernard gave these Eskimos a calendar and explained that they 
should make one check on it each day and when they had thirty 
checks made he would be back again. This was not only a fore- 



648 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

cast of what he intended but also an agreement with the family 
that they should be home at their own trapping camp thirty 
days after he left. 

The distance from Kellett to our Liddon Gulf camp by the 
route they would have to follow around the west and north ends 
of Banks Island cannot be given exactly, but is between three and 
four hundred miles. The Captain had had much experience with 
sledge traveling in Alaska where he had made trips of thousands 
of miles, and he failed to realize the different conditions under 
which he would now have to work. To him it seemed obvious, 
as he told the Eskimos, that he would be able to reach our camp 
in from ten to fifteen days. In Alaska he had often made two 
or three times that distance in the same length of time. Thomsen 
knew the road and where to find the camp, and there is no doubt 
that both of them looked upon the trip as a safe and easy one. 

In Alaska where Captain Bernard had been, the standard dog 
ration, according to what he told me, is bacon and rice. They 
had the rice but not the bacon, and concluded rightly that seal 
blubber would do as well. When they started they had blubber and 
rice equivalent to a fifteen days' Alaskan ration for eighteen dogs. 
They would make a fire each night, cook the rice and feed that 
with blubber to the dogs. 

They drove the eighteen dogs in two equal teams, the second 
team pulling two sledges, one hitched behind the other. How 
sadly they had miscalculated everything was forecast by the fact 
(as the Eskimos told me later) that while the dogs started off 
on a run, they slowed down to a walk within the first half mile 
while they were still in sight from the house. 

Beyond the three sledges, it is impossible to say what loads 
there were but they seem to have been heavy. Apparently they 
took all the mail, both letters and packages, and even some new 
books that friends had sent in to me. There were also presents for 
the other men in Melville Island, boxes of cigars, packages of 
candy, and even two quarts of whisky. In some way Bernard had 
formed the opinion that the Bear had not attempted to go to 
Melville Island, and what he took seems to have been selected on 
the basis of our having nothing there except what we had when 
Thomsen left. They were bringing carpenter tools, canvas for 
the sled-boat cover, material for dog harness, and, as I have said, 
many other things the amount and character of which we shall 
never know, for the Eskimos paid little attention to what was being 




^ M' 




The House at Bernard Harbor. 




i 

The Camp at Armstrong Point. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 649 

loaded into the sledges and were able to give only a partial list 
and the opinion that the loads had been very heavy. 

They started sometime late in October and we can be sure that 
their progress was less than ten miles per day as against the 
twenty or thirty they had expected. On passing the Star they 
probably replenished their provisions to the extent of taking a 
quantity of rice, but from various evidences we suppose they took 
little else. 

On the Gore Islands at the northwest corner of Banks Island 
was a depot of sugar with a few items of groceries. These had 
been left there the previous winter when I gave up the attempt 
of relaying sugar from the Star to the Bear. I have not learned for 
a certainty whether they visited this depot. We shall never know 
more than the bare outline of the story, for there is no information 
beyond what Castel was able to learn and infer. Perhaps I had 
better tell the rest of the story from the point of view of Castel 
and Charlie Andersen when they undertook to find out for me why 
Thomsen had not come to Melville Island. 

Castel and Andersen separated from Storkerson's party near 
Cape Ross, Melville Island, early in May, 1917, more than six 
months after Bernard and Thomsen had started from Kellett 
towards Cape Ross. Castel's party was followed a little way behind 
by Natkusiak's party, who could not travel fast enough to keep up. 

Conditions of weather and travel were the ordinary ones of 
early spring, good except for the prevalence of cloudy and foggy 
weather. Castel made a direct course across Melville Sound for 
Mercy Bay and found on the way no traces of Thomsen. At 
Mercy Bay he found two sledges, one which he recognized as Thom- 
sen's with which he had left us at Melville Island, the other strong 
and new and beautiful, made in Captain Bernard's style. To 
the handle bars of one of the sleds was tied the following note, 
which is the only written document in the case. 

"December 22, 1916. We made a cache on the ice twenty miles NNE 
from here. We are out of grub and our dogs are dying. Eight of the 
dogs have died and we have ten left. We have the mail which we are 
taking with us. 

(Signed) "Peter Bernard, 

"Charles Thomsen." 

This part of the story, then, was clear. They had reached with 
the three sledges and full loads a point on the ice twenty miles 



650 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

NNE of Mercy Bay and about forty miles southwest of Cape Ross 
— sixty miles from our camp on Liddon Gulf. Why they turned 
back we shall never know. It is possible they met open water; in 
fact, that is the most logical supposition, except that it would be 
extraordinary that the water should be open at that time. Apart 
from this we might suppose that their difficulties had led them into 
a despondent frame of mind. Inasmuch as they probably believed 
the Bear had made no attempt to reach Melville Island they may 
have reasoned that we might have had bad luck in hunting and 
that even if they were to reach Liddon Gulf they might find us 
starving and in no better condition to help them than they were 
to help themselves. But it is clear that if there was no open water 
they could have left the two sleds and loads there, hitched all the 
dogs to one sledge and come through rapidly and light to Liddon 
Gulf. One of the things they had in abundance was kerosene, for 
Castel found that although they had taken a good deal from our 
oil drum at Castel Bay, there was still some left in it when he got 
there. They also had lanterns. It would have been easy for us 
with lanterns and kerosene to follow the trail back, pick up the 
sledges, and bring them to Melville Island. Even if there was 
water in the sound they should have camped at the edge of it 
to wait for it to freeze over, for at this time of year it surely 
could not have been many days until the frost would have made 
them a road. 

Fearing the worst now, Castel proceeded westward. At Castel 
Bay he found evidence, as noted above, that they had taken kerosene 
from a fifty-gallon drum. The depot had originally contained other 
things but these had been removed by Lopez and Alingnak on their 
way to Melville Island in May, 1916. 

The north coast of Banks Island is mainly precipitous. Under 
the heavy pressure of the winter winds the ice is heaped up roughly 
in ridges that seldom come quite to the beach. There is accord- 
ingly a comparatively level strip between the precipitous land 
and the rough ice, and this strip will naturally be followed by 
any one traveling by sled, especially in the darkness of midwinter 
when sufficient daylight is not available for picking a direct trail 
across the bays. Castel assumed that Bernard and Thomsen must 
have followed this strip. The trail was now months old and many 
blizzards had intervened, so that it was only once every four or 
five miles that they found on some hard snowdrift the tracks of 
the sled and men going west. At first there were some dog tracks 
but these became fewer, for the dogs had been dying one by one. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 651 

Two days' journey west of Mercy Bay they found the middle 
portion of a sled. Evidently Bernard had been forced to lighten 
up. First he had taken an axe and chopped the rear third off his 
fourteen-foot sled, but the pieces must have been deeply snowed 
over, for Castel never found them. Here was the middle third, 
showing at both ends that the sled had been chopped through with 
an axe and the shoeing then filed off. 

A little west of this Castel came to a hard snowdrift with many 
fox tracks around and with some small fragments of caribou skin 
scattered over the snow. The fox had been digging a hole in the 
drift and underneath was evidently the caribou from which the 
fragments had come. Charlie digging with a shovel came upon 
something white and smooth, and cried to Castel that Bernard's 
party had not been so short of food, after all. But what he had 
taken for the white skin of a piece of salt pork turned out to be 
the shoulder of Thomsen. 

When the snow had been cleared away his body was found 
there, lying on its side as if he had gone quietly to sleep. The 
face did not appear emaciated, which was one reason why they 
felt sure he had not died of actual starvation, and there were 
other proofs to the same effect. The hands were bare but this 
did not signify anything, for men lost in a snowstorm who struggle 
along till they eventually freeze to death often throw away their 
mittens and remove their coats. It is commonly believed that this 
is because they are actually warm from their exertions, but it may 
be that it is merely an evidence of a mind no longer sane. On one 
foot was the ordinary type of boot but on the other a house slipper, 
one of a pair that Mrs. Thomsen had made for him to bring to me 
as a Christmas present. 

On the whole, the evidence leads me to think that Bernard and 
Thomsen were in a camp, probably at night and in a heavy bliz- 
zard. Thomsen had taken off his boots perhaps to dry or mend 
them, when some occasion arose for going out. He put on one boot 
and perhaps because he was sewing the other, he slipped on one of 
my slippers, intending merely to step outdoors. But when one goes 
outdoors in a blizzard the camp becomes invisible at arm's length. 
I have heard several stories of Eskimos who have intended to step 
away from the house but a yard or two but who have never found 
their camps again and have even frozen to death. This is prob- 
ably what happened to Thomsen. When he failed to get back into 
the camp he probably wandered for five or ten miles before the end 
came. That he died a long way from the camp we infer from the 



652 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

fact that, although Castel spent two days in the vicinity, he was 
unable to find any sign of a camp. 

It was not possible to bury the body of Thomsen properly, for 
the ground was rocky and frozen. They made for him a shallow 
grave, covered it with large boulders, and left word for Natkusiak's 
party, who had more time and more resources, to make the grave 
stronger and less likely to be penetrated by animals. They then 
pushed on to search for Bernard's body, for the tragic fate of 
Thomsen left little hope that Bernard could have come through. 
For some time they were able to see traces of him, finding the west- 
ward trail every few miles as before. They now came to our most 
easterly food depot and to the most incomprehensible part of the 
story. 

We knew exactly what was in this depot. The following items 
were found by Castel still untouched: Sugar, 250 lbs.; syrup, 2 
gallons; flour, 100 lbs., and a few pounds of beans and rice. There 
were plain signs that the depot had been visited on the way east 
and by Bernard alone going back. Either on the eastward or 
westward journey the following items had been removed: Prunes, 
15 lbs.; pilot bread, 96 lbs.; tobacco, 34 lbs.; half a case baking 
powder (the remainder was left); tea, several pounds; soap, 12 
lbs.; apples, 30 lbs. 

Here and there along the coast Castel found tin cans which 
had been used as dishes in which to feed the dogs. These showed 
that on the west coast of Banks Island the dogs had been living 
on boiled rice with seal's fat, but on the north coast they had been 
living on boiled rice without the blubber. The most extraordinary 
and perhaps most tragic part of the whole story is that both at this 
and the other depots all the bags of sugar were unopened. The 
dogs were weakening from a diet of rice alone where rice and fat 
would have kept them in good condition. But from a dietetic point 
of view two and a quarter pounds of sugar are equal in food value 
to a pound of fat and take the place of fat acceptably in the dietary. 
This we have found also by experience, for dogs that will refuse to 
eat a strange kind of meat, as, for instance, wolf, will lick syrup 
greedily out of a dish that has about it the odor of seal oil or any 
other strong familiar smell. The dogs as we know from actual trial 
could have been kept in as good condition with sugar and rice as 
with bacon and rice or blubber and rice. The whole tragedy then 
appears to hinge on Bernard and Thomsen's lack of understanding 
of the food value of sugar. 

Another twenty miles west Castel found that Captain Bernard 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 653 

had stopped to rest less than a hundred yards from our second 
depot. Here again the sugar bags were of the number called for 
by our inventory and had not been opened, though other food 
items were gone. 

This second depot was at Cape Giffard. West of that point 
the land becomes gradually lower and the water more shallow in- 
shore so that the rough ice does not approach so closely to the 
beach. It was no longer possible to assume that Captain Bernard 
had followed the beach. There was nothing to prevent him from 
traveling overland, nor, indeed, anything to prevent him from 
traveling half a mile or a mile offshore. Castel advanced slowly, 
searching on the land and on the ice, but there was no longer any 
sure guide as to where the trail would be and he failed to find it 
again. 

With his extreme conscientiousness and loyalty Bernard was 
probably still dragging with him my letter mail. We shall perhaps 
never know where he died nor whether it was on the land or on the 
sea ice. It seems certain that he never got as far back as the Star, 
for there was no evidence of a return visit, although plenty of 
evidence of their having been there on the way north. 

I got the story up to this point from the verbal accounts of 
Binder and Masik as to what Castel and Charlie had told them, and 
the main outline of it from a written report of Castel's. There is 
only one thing to add of a later date. Natkusiak's party spent 
several days in making as secure a grave as they could for Thom- 
sen. They searched carefully for Bernard on the way west but 
found no traces except those which Castel had previously found. 
They have since spent two years around the northwest corner of 
Banks Island, for they proved unable to launch the Star and have 
been using her as a trapping base. During this time they have 
hunted caribou here and there over the land and have examined 
the islands and coastline again and again, so that it seems most 
likely that Captain Bernard died on the sea ice, and that his body 
with the mail and whatever else he had with him will never be 
recovered. 

Thus died two of the expedition's best men. With Storkerson 
and Wilkins, Bernard made the third of those who contributed most 
to our northern section. Any one is wrong who thinks that I have 
criticized Bernard by pointing out his peculiar attitude towards or- 
ders. I have merely made clear how this tragedy could happen in 
spite of precautionary instructions which are matters of record. 
After all, there is often good reason in the Arctic for disobeying 



654 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

orders, for conditions may change so fundamentally that the com- 
mander who issued them might desire to alter or even reverse them 
were he present. Loyalty and good intentions are the main things, 
and I never knew a man who had more of either of these than Cap- 
tain Bernard. He and Thomsen were lost in a brave attempt to do 
what they thought was best and most conducive to the success of the 
expedition. 



CHAPTER LXI 

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MARY SACHS 

CASTEL and Charlie arrived at Cape Kellett in June to find 
there Binder and Masik. 
The Kilian brothers, sent by Captain Gonzales to Kellett 
early in November with the message to Thomsen suggesting that he 
make his journey to Melville Island by way of the Bear and Prince 
of Wales Straits, arrived there to find none but Eskimos, and the 
report that in two or three weeks Captain Bernard would be back 
from Melville Island. They decided to wait for his return, but week 
by week the wait grew longer, and the delay dragged on into mid- 
winter. When eventually they returned to the Bear they had 
begun to fear some tragedy, although they appear to have assumed 
that this would have been on the return journey. When they went 
to the Bear they took with them the Eskimos, so that Castel now 
found at the camp only the two white men. 

Castel was now the senior officer at Kellett. He accordingly 
opened my letter of instructions to Captain Bernard and proceeded 
to carry them out to the best of his ability. I have already men- 
tioned what they were: the Sachs was to be repaired and launched; 
she would then wait for us as late as seemed consistent with her 
ability to get out to the Pacific. I wanted the main body of the 
expedition to get home that fall so that the men might be discharged 
and the great expense of the expedition ended. I have already out- 
lined how I expected to return with my own party to civilization 
in case we were unable to reach Kellett before the close of navi- 
gation. 

CastePs party was ideally adapted to the work in hand. Both 
he and Masik are sailors of the old type who understand not only 
how to handle a ship but how to repair hold, sails and rigging. 
The ship was, of course, very dry after being several seasons out 
of water, but she was in excellent condition and when the seams 
that were wide open because of the dryness had once been properly 
caulked, the swelling of the planks upon launching would make her 
exceptionally tight. When the major repairs had been made, she 
was scraped and painted and her rigging thoroughly overhauled. 

655 



656 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

The sails and rigging were found either in good condition or capa- 
ble of satisfactory repair. Binder knew how to run an engine but 
was primarily a mechanic and admirably adapted for making the 
repairs. We have mentioned that one of the propeller shafts was 
broken when Wilkins was bringing the ship from Bathurst to 
Kellett in 1914. Naturally the propeller was lost. There was a 
spare shaft which Binder was able to put in and a spare propeller, 
not very satisfactory, however, as it was rather too large for the 
power of the engine. 

In the first days of August everything was ready for launching 
and they began to shove the Sachs off gradually with jack screws. 
On the evening of the sixth she was really afloat although her bow 
still rested on the beach. At first she leaked rapidly, as was ex- 
pected on account of her excessively dry condition, but inside of 
two days the seams had closed up so that she had to be pumped 
only four minutes per hour. This was a happy contrast with her 
condition when Wilkins brought her north, for his report said that 
on that voyage she had to be pumped forty minutes per hour. 
In fact, there appears to have been little water that came in after 
the first day except some through the stuffing boxes and a little in 
the bow. That there was a leak in the bow was a minor slip. 
They had had occasion to nail some blocks to the outside of the 
ship and had done this with spikes so large that they had penetrated 
the planking. The spike holes they had forgotten to plug up and it 
was through them the water was coming in. However, a leak of 
four minutes per hour will never prevent a ship from sailing where 
she likes. 

On the evening of the sixth the launching was practically com- 
pleted and the men were rejoicing that their months of hard work 
had come to so successful a close. Next day when the vessel was 
fully afloat they intended to go under power three miles east to 
Baur Harbor and stay until it was time to sail. Had the engines 
not been available they could have sailed her to Baur Harbor, and 
even without sails she could have been "tracked" with a rope along 
the sandy beach. 

Castel's intention when the ship was safe in Baur Harbor was 
to leave one man aboard, to pump if necessary and to take care 
of her generally, while he went with the other two men down to 
the tip of the sandspit and began a survey with soundings of the 
bay behind Kellett with a view to ascertaining whether there might 
be a harbor suitable for big ships. Baur Harbor in 1917 would 
not admit a vessel of more than ten feet draft (the Sachs drew 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 657 

only six and a half) and the entrance was such that it might be 
rendered deeper or shallower any year by ice action — an unsafe 
place to rely on for more than one year at a time. The survey 
of the possible harbor behind Kellett would complete the map of the 
west coast of Banks Island undertaken by Castel in connection 
with the search for Thomsen. 

At this stage the Bear arrived on the scene and we must now 
shift the story to her. In order to do this I must go back to the 
time when Storkerson arrived at the Beafs winter quarters in 
Walker Bay with instructions from me that Captain Gonzales was 
to outfit him for the exploration of Victoria Island. 

On presentation of these, Gonzales had not refused to outfit 
Storkerson but had warned him that he intended to sail away 
from Walker Bay on the first of August, and if Storkerson and 
his party had not arrived from their survey he would leave them 
behind. He also told the men that, while he would not dissuade 
any of them from going with Storkerson, he warned them that any 
who did so were doing it at their own risk, for he thought Storker- 
son might tarry too long at the surveying in which case they would 
have to spend the year in Victoria Island, for they would find the 
ship gone when they came back. Eventually two of the men, 
Martin Kilian and Gumaer, went with Storkerson, but it was agreed 
before they started that Storkerson would send them back on a 
certain date whether the survey had been completed or not. This 
date was placed so early that it seemed from the start that the 
survey was doomed to be a failure. 

Still, Storkerson started and hoped for the best. When they 
had been gone several days and it became evident that the survey 
would take longer than the time allowed by the arrangement with 
Gonzales, both men volunteered to stay by Storkerson, taking 
chances on being marooned. This cheered him up for several days, 
but then Gumaer had a change of heart and asked to be allowed 
to return as originally promised. Martin Kilian stuck creditably 
to his guns and joined Storkerson in urging Gumaer not to go back. 
They were now on the north coast of Victoria Island, the spring 
thaws had come and the overland journey to the Bear would be 
dangerous especially for a man traveling alone. But all arguments 
were of no avail and Storkerson had to fulfill his agreement by 
handing over one of his sleds and dog teams. He cautioned 
Gumaer carefully on the proper route to take, urging him to go 
by the coast. Gumaer, however, preferred his own ideas and 
tried to strike directly overland. The rivers were open and in 



658 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

trying to cross one of them his dog team was drowned, or at any 
rate lost — there seems to be dispute on this minor point. The 
main thing is that Gumaer got back to the ship, although only 
after the greatest difficulties. To me it has always appeared a mar- 
vel that he did get back. From that point of view it was a very 
creditable performance. 

Storkerson and Kilian pressed on with the survey. How near 
they came to finishing it can be seen by a glance at the present 
map of Victoria Island. They still expected that Gonzales would 
sail away on the day he had threatened and they were doing the 
survey on a few extra days which, according to their calculations, 
intervened between the date set by Gonzales for the beginning of 
the return and the time actually necessary. In other words, they 
expected to travel back about twice as fast as Gonzales had esti- 
mated. In this they succeeded. They took their sleds to the 
south end of Collinson Inlet and proceeded with pack dogs over- 
land. By throwing away nearly everything they were able to 
travel overland much faster than we have ever done in summer — 
almost three times as fast. Still, it was two days past the assigned 
date when they got to Walker Bay. They fully expected the 
Bear to be gone but found Gonzales had changed his mind about 
marooning them. 

On leaving winter quarters the Bear tried to get to Kellett, 
which was according to instructions, except that I had not looked 
forward to so early a start. It was found that ice blocked the 
way and an attempt was then made to reach Cape Bathurst to 
land dogs and passengers (the Eskimo families). This was also 
according to instructions. But the ice proved solid towards Cape 
Bathurst, so they turned again towards Kellett and reached there 
on the seventh of August. 

Here they found the Sachs three-quarters in the water. Castel 
and his men had been able to put her in such condition that she 
was better fitted for a voyage than she had been when we bought 
her in Nome. Castel expected to be through mapping the bay 
behind Kellett between the 20th and 25th of August, which he 
hoped would give my party ample time to arrive. It was his in- 
tention to set sail with the Sachs about the 25th if I had not come, 
judging this to be in the spirit of my plans. 

At first Gonzales seemed in agreement with Castel's ideas. The 
Bear gave a hand in pulling the Sachs off the beach. Her engines 
were found to be not in first-class order but they could be put in 
condition, according to the opinion of her engineer. Binder. Later 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 659 

Captain Gonzales changed his mind, told Castel to come aboard the 
Polar Bear with all his men, and announced that he was going to 
leave the Sachs behind. Gonzales seems to have consulted several 
of his men, some of whom agreed that the ship should be left behind, 
their thought being that she would be put in Baur Harbor and sev- 
eral men left with her to keep her in condition. Upon my arrival 
these men together with my party would make a sufficient crew 
for sailing her out. This would have been a satisfactory arrange- 
ment. It appears that several of the men, on being asked by Gon- 
zales, favored his plan of sailing away on the Bear and leaving 
the Sachs for me, but that every one of them supposed she would 
be left in a seaworthy condition so I could use her to carry my 
party home should I arrive at Kellett. None of them conceived 
the possibility of the destruction of the ship nor understood the 
motive of it when that startling event had happened. 

Storkerson's report to me says that when the Sachs was put 
broadside on the beach he was standing on the Bear beside the 
first officer, Seymour, who expressed the opinion that it was "a 
damn shame" to leave a ship in a dangerous position on an open 
beach when in an hour she could have been taken under her own 
power or in tow into a safe harbor three miles away. Later they 
were still more astonished when, without warning to them, they 
saw the foremast of the Sachs come crashing down. The mast was 
sawed up and taken aboard the Bear as wood for the galley stove. 
As to this, the steward, Levi, said that it was the finest firewood 
he ever used but that he could have done without it. The yards 
of the Sachs were also sawed up and carried off; the sails were 
taken away, as well as the engine-room tools and most of the fuel 
oil intended for the engines. 

There have been several conjectures as to the motives that led 
to the destruction of the Sachs. It appears to me most likely that 
when Captain Gonzales had leisure to think about his procedure 
of the previous year, he became less certain that his position would 
be sustained by the Government at Ottawa. Naturally enough, 
he might worry about this. When he came to Kellett and found 
himself the senior officer with me away, it occurred to him that 
if he could sail from Kellett before I arrived and if he left no 
means behind for me to get out, it would not be possible for me 
to get over to the mainland by sled until the middle of the winter 
nor could I get to a telegraph office, such as Dawson, before perhaps 
March. He might then reasonably hope that if he sailed out, get- 
ting to Victoria in September, he could make a satisfactory explana- 



\ 



660 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

tion by showing my orders according to which he was senior officer 
and according to which he was to take the Bear to the Pacific the 
fall of 1917. 

He appears to have relied especially on the paragraph which 
read: ^'It is impossible to give specific instructions to cover every 
eventuality, so I leave it to you to do what is best in your judg- 
ment in any event not covered by these instructions." He would 
report to the Government that he had followed instructions in so 
far as they were definite, and that he had been authorized by the 
quoted paragraph to do whatever other things h-e had done. If 
he could not justify the destruction of a seaworthy ship, he could 
claim the Sachs had not been seaworthy, and then try to justify 
her destruction. If he could secure his pay and get away he 
might hope to lose himself so as not to be prosecuted, especially 
in the excitement and comparative disorganization resulting from 
the war. It is improbable that he would have succeeded in this, 
for several of the men and especially Hadley, Storkerson and Cas- 
tel, would have reported the facts. 

After the mast had been chopped out of the Sachs or possibly 
before, Gonzales made an arrangement with Binder and Masik 
that they were to be in charge of the wreck. He told them to 
break her up as soon as possible and build a house. He gave them 
a stock of groceries, ammunition, traps and the like, and author- 
ized them to use these trapping foxes. This outfit would pay them 
for remaining in charge of a small depot that was being left for 
me, and the furs secured would be their property. This was a very 
advantageous arrangement for men wanting to trap as these did, 
and while they did not differ from the majority of the men in 
thinking the destruction of the ship extraordinary and unjustified, 
still they recognized in the event a windfall for themselves. They 
told me, and Castel said the same later, that they felt especially 
keenly the destruction of the vessel in view of the faithful and long- 
continued work they had devoted to putting her in seaworthy con- 
dition. Written statements from all of Castel's party, himself, 
Charlie, Binder and Masik, say that they considered the ship sea- 
worthy, that they would have been glad to sail out in her, and 
that they told Captain Gonzales so. Some of them explained 
further that they were anxious to wait at Kellett until the season 
showed that my arrival that year had become improbable. 

This was the situation that met me after a walk of twenty- 
eight hours. Truly the first and strongest feeling was wonder that 
these picturesque doings could have happened outside the covers 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 661 

of a book for boys. I was unable to understand the temperament 
or motives that would lead to such things, but the situation for us 
was plain. 

The outfit that had been left for us was conspicuous for the 
want of certain things. There were no sledges or means of travel, 
so that we were as nearly prevented as possible from leaving Banks 
Island. Indeed it would have been necessary for us, had we de- 
sired to leave by sled, first £o go back overland with pack dogs 
to the northeast corner and pick up the sleds we had left there, 
bringing them home on the first snow. This would have required 
two months of tedious work. Neither had primus stoves been left 
nor suitable equipment for traveling, but in this respect we could 
have made out somehow. There were no writing materials except 
those we had brought with us overland, and scarcely any books 
to read. All the best had been carried away. 

My companions with the dogs arrived three days after me. 
The Stevensonian romance of being deserted and marooned ap- 
pealed far less to them than to me, and feeling ran high for a 
while, with many remarks of all they would do and say when they 
got out to civilization. 

We laid plans at once. We would start in two or three weeks 
back to Point Russell to fetch the sleds. We would kill the neces- 
sary number of caribou for food and clothing in the fall, and 
probably in February would cross over to Cape Bathurst and thence 
to the Mounted Police post at Fort Macpherson and over the 
mountains to Dawson. What worried the boys most in this con- 
nection was that obviously we were going to be too late. If the 
Bear had luck and got out, her men would be paid off and gone. 
In our bitterness of feeling we assumed for the moment that most 
of the men had been involved with Gonzales in the destruction of 
the Sachs and our marooning on Banks Island, except Storkerson, 
Hadley and Castel. From them I had received letters through 
Binder stating their unequivocal disapproval of what had been 
done and saying that they had protested vainly against it. 

As an alternative to this plan we had but one hope — ^the pos- 
sible arrival of Captain Pedersen with the Herman to pick up the 
catch of furs secured by his natives forty miles southeast of us. 
I knew pretty well that if Captain Pedersen got that near he would 
come to Kellett to see how things stood. But to make everything 
doubly sure I asked Masik to go down to the Herman camp with 
a message for him. 

It took me far less time to grasp the situation than it does to 



662 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

explain it in this book, as is shown by the fact that Masik was on 
his way in a rowboat within six hours after I arrived at Kellett, 
although the first hour had been occupied by him in cooking me a 
supper. He had a clumsy boat to row and he had not slept for at 
least fifteen hours; still he expected to make the whole forty miles 
before sleeping, and did so — I learned later that he had a head 
wind part of the way. I saw at once that Masik was of that 
admirable type who never conjure up imaginary difficulties and 
who go about any important thing with directness and despatch. 
He returned, after a nap and a bit of rest, with the news that the 
Herman had not arrived although the Eskimos expected Captain 
Pedersen, according to the arrangement of the previous year. 

There was hope, then, for the season was not yet late. But the 
prospects grew less each day. In the neighborhood of Banks Island 
there was no ice so far as we could see from the highest hills, 
but apparently there must be ice to the south, for nothing but 
the most difiicult conditions would keep away a skillful ice navi- 
gator like Pedersen with such a competent ship as the old whaler 
Herman. 



CHAPTER LXII 

THE ADVENTURES OF THE AUTUMN 1917 

THE morning of August 26th a ship came in sight. It was not 
the Herman but Crawford and Wittenberg's Challenge. I 
knew Crawford pretty well after years of association and he 
had not been ashore long when everything had been cleared up be- 
tween us and was frankly understood. Crawford knew the situation 
aboard the Bear much better than I. He said that on the basis of 
his diagnosis of it he had concluded that "something was going to 
drop." He knew the Bear had a depot in Prince of Wales Straits 
but imagined that she would be in too much of a hurry to get to 
the Pacific to stop and pick this up. Accordingly, he and Witten- 
berg had decided they might as well have it, otherwise it would 
be destroyed by Eskimos who would not know how to utilize a 
quarter of it. But this year the ice conditions in Prince of Wales 
Straits had been different from the year before and, although the 
Challenge had tried to make her way to the depot, she had not 
been able to do so. 

They had then decided to make for Kellett, thinking that they 
might find there a deal of abandoned stores. If they were really 
abandoned they would belong to the Challenge under the laws of 
salvage, and anyway they felt sure that the Government would 
eventually be willing to sell them for a reasonable price. They 
had assumed that I would not be on Banks Island, possibly because 
my party might have been lost out on the ice, and possibly be- 
cause we might have decided to come home by another route. 
When they found us in possession they were obviously delighted. 
Not only were their feelings towards us friendly but it gave them a 
chance to make a good trade. Our supplies and the wreck of the 
Sachs, including her engines, were things which they could turn 
to considerable use, while to us they were of no value. The Chal- 
lenge, on the other hand, gave us our only chance of getting out 
of the country. They were in a fine position for making a favor- 
able sale and, although I knew the Challenge to be unsound, I was 
happy to buy her for six thousand dollars, giving to boot all our 
supplies on Banks Island. 

663 



664 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Inside of twenty-four hours the bargain was completed, Craw- 
ford's men were ashore and ours on board. Mr. Leo Wittenberg, 
part owner with Crawford, decided to come out with us as our 
guest. 

Masik was sailing master and Binder engineer. The rest of 
us were the crew, men of all work. We had a beautiful, sunshiny- 
day and a fair breeze. To travel west as fast as possible we took 
a great circle course for Herschel Island, intending to omit the 
customary call at the Hudson's Bay trading station at Cape Bath- 
urst (the Baillie Islands). But we had not been on the way many 
hours when we came to thick ice, the edge of which ran northwest 
and southeast. There was no sense in going into such compact 
ice, especially with a weak ship like the Challenge, so we turned 
a little more than a right angle and followed the edge of the ice 
southeast. 

The next morning, twenty-seven hours after leaving Kellett, 
we had another evidence that dramatic situations may arise out- 
side the brains of novelists. Out of the fog came a clear spell, 
and there in front of us, two or three miles away, was the Bear. 

The ships stood towards each other, our men tense to the situa- 
tion, and they unaware. It seemed to me wise not to come on 
deck until the ships should be at close quarters, and so I went to 
the cabin. Meantime Mr. Wittenberg, with mixed motives of a 
boyish prank and the idea that the Bear might turn tail and run, 
hoisted a distress signal. He had mentioned doing so to me, but 
I think I made no answer beyond saying that I did not see why we 
should. It is the custom in these waters for ships to speak each 
other, and the Bear, not suspecting my being aboard, would have 
come up to us even without the signal. When she came within 
speaking distance some of our men hailed the Bear and told them 
that I was on the Challenge and wanted the Bear to tie up to some 
nearby solid ice so that I could come aboard. 

Later from the men aboard the Bear I heard various stories of 
how the surprise struck everybody. I could well imagine it and 
so, indeed, can the reader. The first thing that actually happened 
was that after the two ships had tied up Captain Gonzales came 
aboard the Challenge with an explanation of all that had taken 
place. Essentially it amounted to this: 

He considered himself to know on the basis of what I had said, 
as well as on the written instructions, that my main concern was to 
get the expedition safe home in 1917. He had accordingly given 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 665 

Storkerson strict orders that he must not through the extensiveness 
of his spring explorations delay the sailing of the Bear, telling him 
that the ship would start as soon as navigation conditions allowed. 
Later when he got to Kellett he had inspected the Sachs, found her 
unsound, and had on the recommendation of his officers decided to 
destroy her. His crew also was inadequate for handling the Bear 
and he needed Castel's men aboard. In explanation of why he 
had chopped out the mast and put the ship on the beach he said 
that his galley stove had been short of fuel, that the Sachs was 
no good, anyhow, and that he did not have the time — an hour or 
two— to tow the Sachs into Baur Harbor. Furthermore, he con- 
sidered that Binder and Masik would have things more important 
to do than to keep pumping the ship to keep her afloat. 

Captain Gonzales gave me the names of four of his officers with 
whom he said he had consulted and who had recommended the de- 
struction of the Sachs. Three of these men denied the story en- 
tirely but the fourth said that he had recommended leaving the 
Sachs, meaning, however, not her destruction but that she should 
be towed to Baur Harbor and anchored there in charge of the 
two who were being left behind. As I have mentioned, the sugges- 
tion of this officer would have met with my approval. I should 
have liked nothing better on arriving at Kellett than to find the 
Bear safely on her way and the Sachs waiting for us with an ade- 
quate crew, Castel, Andersen, Binder and Masik. Even with just 
Binder and Masik we should have been all right, for the Sachs 
was no more difficult to sail than the Challenge, needing no larger 
crew. 

The engineer of the Bear, Herman Kilian, stated that he had 
told Captain Gonzales that the engines of the Sachs were not in good 
condition. He had not, however, recommended the destruction 
of the ship. The condition of the engines was in a sense not very 
material. It is a great convenience to have power, but during two 
or three decades of whaling many a sailing ship has gone from 
Kellett safely to the Pacific without the use of engines. Indeed, 
this entire part of the Arctic, so far as it was explored before our 
time, is known to us almost solely through the work of men who 
came up in sailing ships which usually brought them safe home 
again. 

I now took personal charge of the Bear, transferring Castel to 
the command of the Challenge. After some delays and troubles 
with the ice, both ships proceeded to the harbor at Cape Bathurst 




666 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

where Captain Gonzales left the expedition. We also put off sev- 
eral of our other men who desired to become trappers there, Pete 
Lopez, Jim Fiji, and some Eskimos. 

Under the pressure of stating many things in a book that con- 
tinually tries to become too long I have given insufficient space to 
many of our good and useful men. Of these, few were more 
admirable and none more popular than Jim Fiji, or James Asasela, 
as he writes it on rare occasions. 

When the World's Fair was held in 1893 one of the exhibits 
was a young man who had grown to maturity in the Samoa Islands 
and had been brought to Chicago as a part of the exhibit of "native 
races." This young man was James Asasela. When the Fair was 
over he drifted to San Francisco with an idea of getting back to the 
Samoas. He could not speak much English, so he went down to 
the water front to see if he could find a ship that looked as if it 
would take him home. He saw a small sailing ship that had 
several "Kanakas" aboard, natives of the Hawaii Islands. He 
could not speak to these Hawaiians but he knew what people and 
country they belonged to, so he went to the officers of this ship 
and asked for a job, for he thought they were sailing for the Hawaii 
Islands. Two or three months later he found himself in the Arctic. 
Jim Fiji from the tropics now had to spend the winter with a whaler 
at Herschel Island, two hundred miles north of the arctic circle, 
on the north coast of Canada. He found it hard, for he did not 
know how to take care of himself in the cold. He froze his face 
and his fingers and shivered and was miserable, and he has told 
me that he would have given anything to be out of it and home. 
But it was a three-years' voyage, and during the next two years 
he learned how to clothe himself properly and how to protect him- 
self from frost, and he liked the last year so well that when the 
vessel got down to San Francisco he immediately shipped on an- 
other whaler to go north again. And at the end of this three-year 
voyage he liked the north so well that when the ship turned home 
he asked permission of the captain to remain behind. 

Jim Fiji had lived in that country ever since, trapping and occa- 
sionally working for whalers or traders, and he worked three years 
for us on this expedition. I have known him since 1906 as one 
of the finest men in the North, and consider him one of my good 
friends. He has been industrious and frugal, has caught many 
foxes, has sold his furs at favorable prices, and now he has money 
in the bank. The amount is a subject on which he is reticent, for 
he has in that respect the instincts of a miser. He will give you 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 667 

any food or clothing or other articles he has, but when anything 
has once been turned into money it never gets away from him. 
Some say he is worth ten thousand dollars and others say forty 
thousand. 

In 1917 his hair had turned nearly white and he was getting 
to be an old man. Although I am a great believer in the North it 
struck me one day that it might be no bad speculation for Jim 
Fiji to go back with some of his riches to the Samoa Islands and 
settle down. I suggested to him that a good thing to do would be 
to go south with us to San Francisco, put most of his money into 
Liberty Bonds, take a few thousand dollars to the Samoas and 
buy an estate on which he could live. This idea struck him very 
favorably and thereafter we had many talks about what he was 
going to do. He told me how you could get a man down there to 
work for you all day for five cents, and he had great visions of what 
he was going to do as a landlord. Among other things, I was to 
come and visit him some time down there. He knew how fond 
I was of the Eskimo foods and he described in detail the peculiar 
Samoan foods which he was going to give me to see how I liked them. 

At the end of the expedition I came east to Ottawa and New 
York and Jim Fiji went to San Francisco. Some months later I 
went out to San Francisco and the day after I got there Jim Fiji 
called on me. I was surprised to find him still there, but he ex- 
plained that when he got there he heard that one of his cousins was 
on the way from the Samoas and so he thought he would await 
his arrival before starting for home. When this cousin arrived 
he told him, among other things, that wages had gone up and 
that you no longer were able to hire a man for five cents per day. 
Various other things had changed for the worse, but the main 
thing that worried Jim was that he found he could not stand very 
well the heat of San Francisco and, as he imagined that the Samoas 
would be even hotter, he had decided that he did not care to go 
back after all and his intentions now were to buy another trapping 
outfit and go to the Arctic again. 

This is what he has done. In the spring of 1919 he was taken 
north by Captain Pedersen of the Herman, and Captain Pedersen 
tells me he landed Jim on Cape Bathurst, the second most northerly 
point on the Canadian mainland. He expects to live there the rest 
of his life. 

There was nothing before us now except to get out into the 
Pacific before the ice stopped us somewhere on the north coast of 
Alaska. Some of our men were very glad of the prospect of getting 



668 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

out; some were willing or anxious to turn from exploratory work 
to the more lucrative occupations of trapping and trading; but a 
few were genuinely reluctant and urged me to continue another 
year. But these were merely the same type of proposals which 
I had vetoed when Noice made them in Melville Island. I did 
consider staying for a year with just my three men and two teams, 
for the expense would have been little and the interest considerable. 
We had already maintained ourselves a year and a half away from 
useful contact with our ships, and extending this period by another 
year would have emphasized further what our whole work goes 
to emphasize; that men who understand conditions can travel al- 
most if not quite where they like and stay as long as they will 
in the Arctic with safety and comfort. It had always been my 
intention to get the expensive ships and their large, crews off the 
payroll of the expedition, and I saw no reason now for keeping 
the ship another year. Neither did I think that the Government 
would approve of our doing so under war conditions, for we had 
the news at Cape Bathurst that the fighting was continuous on 
every front, the resources of every nation strained and the issue 
still doubtful. In fact, it was only then that we realized that the 
struggle was likely to continue indefinitely. Before this time we 
had always supposed that each next arrival of news would tell that 
it was over. This was our third news of the war. The other two 
occasions were when Captain Lane broke it to us at Kellett in 
August, 1915, and when Captain Gonzales brought to Melville 
Island the spring of 1917 what news the Challenge had given him 
the previous fall. 

Noice was the most enthusiastic of all about continuing. When 
he found there was no hope of our staying he thought of the plan 
of buying the Challenge, which he knew would be of no further use 
to us. 

There was at Cape Bathurst an old friend of mine, A. A. Carroll, 
whom I had first met on my second journey down the Mackenzie 
River in 1908, when he was intending to prospect for gold on the 
Liard and elsewhere west of the Mackenzie. He was now asso- 
ciated with another friend. Colonel J. K. Cornwall, of Edmonton, 
who since long before my time has been one of the most prominent 
figures in the "North" as that term is understood in central Canada 
— the Mackenzie and Peace River basins. Cornwall was now 
head of a large fur trading company which Carroll was represent- 
ing on a sort of trade reconnoitering journey to Coronation Gulf. 
I was able to tell Noice that Carroll would probably be an agree- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 669 

able and dependable associate, and the upshot was that Noice 
asked to be discharged from the employ of the expedition and that 
Binder and Carroll formed a partnership with him for the pur- 
chase of the Challenge for this eastern venture. Binder and Carroll 
had their eyes on fur and a fortune, but Noice was eager to com- 
plete the short piece of work left undone by Storkerson in the 
mapping of northeastern Victoria Island. He was hoping to reach 
Coronation Gulf by ship, then to go northeastward across Victoria 
Island with probably one sled and one or two companions, depend- 
ing on the rifle, according to our system. This would be especially 
interesting because his route would lie through the vicinity where 
more than a hundred men of the Erehus and Terror had starved 
to death (about 1847). 

The adventures of Harold Noice on this enterprise have not yet 
been brought down to date when this book goes to press. The 
first year his ship was wrecked in winter quarters on the mainland 
coast of Amundsen Gulf, and this appears to have dissolved the 
partnership arrangement. The details of what follows are vague, 
for even Noice's parents have had but scant information from 
him, one letter a year, repetitions very much one of the other. 
He has been traveling around mostly with Eskimo companions, 
has visited eastern Victoria Island though we do not yet know 
whether he has completed the survey, and has prospered and had 
a good time. As nearly as can be judged from his letters, he has 
spent most of one year in southeastern Victoria Island. If he was 
on the very southeast coast he must have been within sight of 
where the Erehus and Terror were held fast in the ice before their 
crews left them upon the march which led to their death. Much 
has been written and inferred of the hostility and desolation of 
this region. But any one who knows Noice will know that he 
means exactly what he says in a letter to his mother: ^'Living off 
the country is easy if only one makes hay while the sun shines, 
killing plenty of seals in the spring of the year for the next year's 
fuel supply, killing plenty of deer in the summer for the winter's 
clothing, and in the fall laying in an abundant supply of fine, fat 
deer meat for the winter's grubstake." 

I have had friendly controversies with people who imagine that 
our success in "living off the country" is due to some special ability 
of mine as a hunter which might not be present in some one else. 
I "have always denied this and maintained that if we deserve 
credit it is for developing a system and not for any individual 
prowess. Beyond temperament, I have no special qualifications 



670 . THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

for the work, nor has Storkerson, nor any of the other men who 
helped me. Nor has Noice any special qualifications for it except 
the imagination to see its value and interest. There are few men 
in civilized occupations to-day who are finding their work as con- 
genial or who will tell you with equal enthusiasm that they have 
had a bully time. Even were he to bring home no surveys nor 
scientific information, properly so called, he would still be a pio- 
neer, a less sanguinary but comparably useful Daniel Boone, open- 
ing new lands to the frontiersmen who bring commercial devel- 
opment in the wake of the pioneer. There may no longer be a 
Far West but there is a Far North with the same nebulous and 
glamorous future within which shall rise stately cities and empires 
of productivity. 

We got to Herschel Island September 7th, 1917. Both there and 
at Cape Bathurst we had heard much talk about how bad the ice 
conditions had been, and most people seemed sure that we could 
not get out this season. In case this should prove true we took 
aboard from the Police storehouse certain supplies belonging to the 
expedition and purchased enough more from the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany store to make about half enough food should we be com- 
pelled to winter. We paid off at Herschel Island most of our 
Eskimos and also William Seymour, the first officer of the Bear, 
who intended to spend the winter there. Indeed, Mr. Seymour 
lives in the Arctic rather than anywhere else. We now had Hadley 
for master and Castel and Masik for first and second officers. Stor- 
kerson, who had for a long time been in a sense our most important 
man, never had an official position aboard the ships, because the 
work of the ships seemed to me entirely secondary to that of sledge 
travel. He is an excellent sailor, well fitted for a ship's command, 
and this was one of my serious errors in tactics, for I can now see 
that many things would have gone better had I given him an official 
(although to my mind an empty) rank corresponding to his ability 
and his usefulness. 

After two or three days at Herschel Island we proceeded to the 
trading station of the H. Liebes and Company, just west of the 
International Boundary, a post under the charge of Thomas Gor- 
don, one of the best known men in the North and for many years 
a resident of the vicinity of Point Barrow* 

We had heard something of the movements of the Herman that 
summer but Gordon gave the story more fully. She had tried her 

*For several references to Mr. Gordon, see index of "My Life With the 
Eskimo." 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 671 

best to force a way through the ice to Banks Island for the purpose 
of connecting with their Eskimo trappers and also to see how we 
were progressing at Cape Kellett, but she had been unable to pene- 
trate more than a few miles northeast of Cape Bathurst. Im- 
pressed with the necessity of hurrying back if he did not want to 
be frozen in for the winter, Captain Pedersen had given up some 
of his plans and turned west. He had been at Mr. Gordon's place 
a week before our arrival and had been doubtful when he left there 
of his ability to get out, for the ice was heavy and close to the 
land. Mr. Gordon was of the opinion that the chances were 
against us now. He did not have enough of a trading outfit to 
satisfy all his Eskimo customers, from whom he could get a much 
better price than from us, as he dealt with them in terms of furs 
rather than money, so it was in the nature of a favor that he sold 
us some additional supplies when we ourselves began to doubt that 
we should get out. 

But as we proceeded west the conditions became more favorable. 
Still, there was much ice about when on the evening of September 
13th we arrived at a harbor at the east end of Barter Island. This 
is the only real harbor known to me on the coast between Herschel 
Island and Point Barrow, and as the night promised to be stormy 
and very dark, our officers advised tying up for the six or eight 
hours of darkness, to proceed again early in the morning. 

That night turned out to be one of the turning points in the 
expedition. I was sleeping in the wheel house on deck. Captain 
Hadley, who aimed to be always on deck when the ship was under 
way, was sleeping below in his cabin, and it was the first officer's 
watch. In the evening the wind was blowing hard from the north- 
east. It was cloudy and dark. About the time that Castel first 
noticed daylight in the sky the wind suddenly turned to southwest 
and then blew as hard as before. Castel noticed that a strong cur- 
rent began running through the harbor to the northeast. He came 
and woke me and I told him to have the Captain called imme- 
diately. It was perhaps two minutes later and the Captain was 
just coming on deck when the ship bumped bottom. We had been 
lying with four or five feet of water under our keel and ample 
room to swing in any direction the full length of the cable. But 
the current and wind together had suddenly become so strong that 
we dragged anchor, and it was so dark that no one realized what 
was happening until our stern struck a sandbank. A moment later 
we were broadside and helpless. We got out all our anchors, car- 
ried them in a boat to windward and hove on the windlass, know- 



672 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

ing very well, however, that nothing was going to happen, for it 
was beyond our power to straighten the ship up and get her nose 
into the wind. The serious feature was that a southwest gale of 
the sort that was now blowing is always accompanied by a rise 
in sea level of four feet or more. We could not heave the ship's 
nose into the wind until it slackened materially and the current as 
well, but the slackening of wind and current would mean a drop in 
water level of four or five feet, leaving the ship flat on her side 
on a mud bank.* 

That is exactly what happened. At the end of the gale there 
was so little water around us that we could not have floated the 
ship off, even if we had removed her entire cargo. For one thing, 
she had more depth aft than anywhere else and much of it was due to 
the fuel oil in her tanks. Her stern could not be lightened without 
emptying the oil out and we had no containers. Had we pumped 
it into the ocean we should have been compelled to rely later en- 
tirely on sails for motive power, and the Bear, with all her many 
good qualities, is not a good sailing vessel. It was doubtful whether 
we could get off even with such heroic measures as throwing away 
gasoline. Consultation with Storkerson, Hadley and Castel ended 
in the conclusion that the only thing we could do was to lighten the 
ship, keep her anchors off to windward and wait for the next south- 
west gale, which might be any number of weeks away. The rise 
of tide with a sou'wester often comes several hours ahead of the 
gale. It was this we would watch for — high water unaccompanied 
as yet by wind that would interfere with us. 

The season was now so late that the chances were against our 
getting the ship afloat in time to reach the Pacific. We were in 
the best harbor on the coast and if we had to stay at all we might 
as well stay in this one. And if we had to stay we had better try 
to do something useful. Plans were soon made, for our situation 
was convenient for a thing I had long wanted to do. 

*See post, p 740, for account of how a similar misfortune befell the 
Alaska at Cape Bathurst the fall of 1914. 



CHAPTER LXIII 

THE RETURN AFTER THE FIFTH WINTER 

IN 1896 Nansen started on a voyage that was a new departure 
in the method of polar exploration. On the basis of sound 
and brilliant reasoning, he had concluded that if a ship were 
put in the ice near the north coast of Alaska or the north coast of 
eastern Siberia, it would float across the polar basin, coming out 
into the north Atlantic in the vicinity of Spitsbergen, where huge 
quantities of ice are known to be continually moving south to be 
melted in the Gulf Stream. Nansen made a great step forward 
with this plan in the methods of polar exploration and carried it 
out successfully. 

In 1879 Lieutenant de Long's Jeannette was caught in the ice 
in the vicinity of Wrangel Island and carried northwestward until 
she was crushed north of the New Siberian Islands. It was in the 
vicinity where the Jeannette was lost that Nansen put the Fram 
into the ice, so that when the cruise of the Jeannette and the cruise 
of the Fram are both plotted on a circumpolar map they make 
nearly a continuous curved line from Wrangel Island to Spits- 
bergen. In the fall of 1913 the Karluk had been set fast in the 
ice not far northwest from Barter Island where we now were and 
had been carried to the vicinity of Wrangel Island before she was 
broken by the ice. If her drift is plotted on the same circum- 
polar chart with those of the Jeannette and Fram, the three make a 
nearly continuous line from the vicinity of Barter Island to Spits- 
bergen. It seems, then, that there is not much point in putting a 
ship into the ice anywhere on the north coast of Alaska or the 
north coast of Siberia, for such a ship if frozen in far enough east 
will duplicate first the Karluk drift, second the Jeannette drift, 
and third the Fram drift, following their route approximately. 
This at least seems likely to me. 

Nansen's idea of drifting in a ship was that a ship would be 
a sort of floating boarding-house for his men, giving them a com- 
fortable dwelling as they drifted and as they carried on such scien- 
tific work as they might find possible, — soundings, zoological col- 
lecting, magnetic observations, and the like. We had come to the 

673 



674 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

conclusion that a party of men could be as safe and comfortable 
without a ship as with it, that on any ice field you will find snow for 
a sanitary and excellent house, and that for adequate food and fuel 
there will be seals and polar bears. 

Apart entirely from its novelty, accomplishing such a drift with- 
out a ship has definite advantages. Any ship drift, by the very 
nature of the polar sea (the currents of which we know well enough 
to make this prediction) must duplicate in succession the drifts of the 
Karluk, Jeannette and Fram. The ice may be considered as a huge 
disk revolving about an axis not far from the Pole of Inaccessibility 
(and not about the geographic Pole). A ship must freeze in near 
the margin of this disk and must stay near the margin till the drift 
is finished. But a party traveling with sledges can march any con- 
venient distance into the area of revolving ice. Their drift, if 
plotted on the sea bottom, would (I reasoned) form a curved line 
about as much nearer to the center of the ice than the ship drift 
as they had traveled many miles into the ice. This would enable 
them to cut a new swath, whereas a ship must follow the old and 
beaten path. Men drifting in a ship must stay by the ship unless 
they are willing to cut their journey short as Nansen did, or willing 
to "live off the country" as we do. But if willing to live off the 
country at all, why not refrain from the expense and bother of freez- 
ing a ship into the ice? 

As compared with a party drifting in a ship, the drifting sledge 
party will have not only the inside track (both literally and figura- 
tively) to begin with, but they can move when they like. In Feb- 
ruary of any year such a drifting party could leave their home on 
the ice floe and come ashore where they liked. One year of drifting 
might take them from a point two hundred miles north of our pres- 
ent harbor to a point somewhere west of Wrangel Island and one 
or two hundred miles north of the Jeannette course. They could 
then travel over the ice in February, March and April, and land 
perhaps late in that month or early in May near the Kolyma delta 
or the delta of the Lena. If the drift were continued a second year, a 
landing would presumably have to be made farther west. 

All this was assuming a westward drift roughly parallel to the 
drifts of the Karluk, Jeannette and Fram. But should there be 
no drift, the party could come ashore in Alaska; and were the 
drift to the north or northeast, they could land on Banks Island, 
Prince Patrick Island, Borden Island or even in Greenland. 

This was a plan the carrying out of which I had had in mind 
for several years; indeed, ever since v^e had found on the Martin 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 675 

Point trip the abundance of animal life at sea. My intention 
had been to go home, publish the results of this expedition, and 
organize a second one for the purpose of such a drift, but now our 
enforced delay of a year gave opportunity for doing the thing 
directly and without any great expense of time or money, at least 
compared with the magnitude of the undertaking. Should we re- 
main in winter quarters idle all winter, the wages of the men 
would go on and food v/ould have to be provided for them just as 
if they were working hard and usefully. The party that would 
do the actual drifting would not be more than five men, and the 
ship with the rest of her company could proceed home the follow- 
ing summer, with enough crew still to man her satisfactorily. 

We had sold most of our dogs and disposed of much of the gear 
needed for exploration. But Mr. Gordon at Demarcation Point 
and Mr. Harding at Herschel Island had supplies to sell in the 
way of iron and hardwood that would enable us to build some 
good sledges. Ole Andreasen was now in charge of a trading post 
at Shingle Point and I thought it likely that a man with his ex- 
perience would have for his own use, if not to sell, some good 
dogs, sledges and primus stoves. And east of there lay the Mac- 
kenzie delta where I had previously purchased the best dogs we have 
ever had, and where I felt sure I could get new ones. All the 
preparations except the purchase of the dogs and sledge materials 
would be looked after at the winter base. Our party had fortu- 
nately been augmented at Herschel Island by Anthony Shannon 
who was a competent worker in metals, and Peter Donohue who 
was an excellent carpenter, both former members of the crew of the 
Challenge. When I came aboard the Bear 1 had found them as 
passengers on the way out to Nome. 

Although this projected journey was one of the most interesting 
and important that the expedition had undertaken, I must cover 
the preparations for it in a few paragraphs. As soon as the ice 
was thick enough for sledge travel, Storkerson and I with several 
teams proceeded east along the coast. At Gordon's we were as- 
sured of cooperation and were able to secure one good sledge. At 
Herschel Island the Mounted Police detachment was under the 
command of Inspector Tupper, a grandson of the great Sir Charles 
Tupper, one of the makers of Canadian history. As always, the 
Pohce would do what they could to help, and Mr. Harding for the 
Hudson's Bay Company, equally friendly, had moderately good 
sledge materials for our needs. Storkerson did not go farther but 
devoted himself to freighting various supplies from Herschel Island 



676 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

and Demarcation Point to Barter Island, where every one worked 
hard and faithfully all winter. From Herschel Island I went down 
to Shingle Point, where Ole Andreasen was not only anxious to 
help but also inclined to want to become a member of our explora- 
tory party. In the delta and at Fort Macpherson I was able to 
buy several good dogs and many ordinary ones, so that eventu- 
ally our outfit of sledges and dogs became far the best that we 
had on the expedition. 

The prospects were excellent when the first week of January 
I had finished all purchases of dogs, had engaged some Eskimos 
to help in the early stages of the journey, and was proceeding 
westward from the delta to Herschel Island. But, as often before, 
these bright prospects were to be darkened and this time through 
a new cause. During the years we had been isolated from people 
we had been mercifully free from contagious "colds." But we 
had been infected as soon as we reached Cape Bathurst and repeat- 
edly during the fall we "caught cold" afresh from coming to some 
new settlement of whites or Eskimos. I caught one of these colds 
while at the house of Mr. Kenneth Stewart, the Hudson's Bay 
Company's trader in the delta, and while traveling north to the 
coast and then west I began to feel more and more indisposed. At 
Shingle Point I remained two or three days visiting Ole, for there 
was as yet no hurry, with Storkerson and Hadley carrying on the 
preparations adequately at the Bear. The start was to be not 
actually from the ship but from Cross Island, about four or five 
days' journey to the westward. Here we had a hunting camp 
under the command of Castel for the purpose of securing seals for 
dog feed, and I felt equally at ease about this undertaking, for 
few things had been better done for the expedition than Castel's 
management of our base at Grassy in 1917. I accordingly thought 
I could afford to humor myself until the indisposition passed, as I 
felt sure it would do in a few days. 

We started from Shingle Point for King Point, Amundsen's for- 
mer winter quarters fifteen miles west, with a strong head wind blow- 
ing and I know now that I must have had a fever of probably 103° 
or 104°, for I have never been more ill than I was on that day 
and on the two days following while we were storm-bound at King 
Point. The fourth day of the high fever we traveled from King 
Point to Stokes Point, a distance of over twenty-five miles and I 
walked about eighteen of them, still against a head wind. But 
towards the end I had no more strength and had to be carried 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 677 

on the sled to Stokes Point. Here we met Inspector Tupper, who 
was giving up his command at Herschel Island and was bound 
for civilization by way of Fort Macpherson and Dawson. He 
is reported to have said later that he realized I was seriously ill, 
but he said nothing to me at the time and I did not as yet under- 
stand it, for my experience with illness is limited. 

For once I found an Eskimo house intolerable. They are al- 
ways overheated from the point of view of a white man but I am 
accustomed to them. In this case, however, I could not endure 
the heat and slept in the alleyway where the temperature went 
below freezing. I had no thermometer but I knew that no matter 
how low the temperature fell I should not suffer from cold. Re- 
calling the modern treatment of fevers where the patient is fre- 
quently packed in ice, I considered it quite orthodox to sleep in an 
unheated snow alleyway. 

The next day my Eskimo host hitched up his team, for ours 
was loaded, and carried me wrapped in blankets into Herschel 
Island, about eighteen miles. I went directly to the Police bar- 
racks, where I was welcomed by Constables Lamont and Brockie. 
They sent at once for the missionary, Mr. Henry Fry, who was 
considered to have the most experience of any one on the island 
with disease, or who at any rate had a thermometer. My tem- 
perature was something above 104°. There was great excitement 
forthwith. I was bathed, put to bed and treated as sick men com- 
monly are. 

Nothing could have exceeded the kindness of every white man 
on the island, nor were the Eskimos unsympathetic. The two 
white women, Mrs. Fry and Mrs. Harding, also did what they 
could in the way of cooking and sending over dishes that are con- 
sidered safe and proper for invalids. 

No one, except possibly Mr. Fry, realized in the early stages 
that the disease was serious. As for me, I counted every day on 
being out of bed to-morrow, but as time lengthened into weeks I 
began to chafe. It did not occur to me that I could not make the 
ice trip, but only that once more the start was going to be delayed 
until March when the temperature is no longer as low as it should 
be for the best progress over moving ice. So I sent for Storkerson 
and conferred with him about the alteration of plans involving 
further delay. 

Two weeks later I began a gradual recovery, hastened, I believe, 
by my eating generous meals of the most substantial kinds of food. 



678 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

Finally, I felt sure that in four or five days I should be able to leave 
Herschel Island, so I sent Storkerson off westward to have every- 
thing ready. 

But a few hours after he had gone I was taken with violent chills 
and a fever that was over 105°, the first stage of pneumonia. It 
was only now that every one began to realize the seriousness of 
the situation. This came about especially through the illness of 
Constable Lamont, who was taken with a disease which had much 
more clearly marked the orthodox symptoms of typhoid than had 
been true in my case. It was realized now that I had just been 
through typhoid, which brought great horror to every one when 
they thought of the things they had allowed me to eat. During the 
period of the highest fever I had been without appetite, but as soon 
as the fever began to drop to 100° I had begun to eat steaks and 
fried potatoes and whatever else the Police were having for their 
meals. An hour before my sudden relapse I had eaten a large meal 
of macaroni and cheese and it was believed that this had brought 
on the relapse. Those who had then protested now felt that the 
relapse served me right, while even the others were constrained to 
admit that nothing else could have been expected to befall a sick 
man who ate macaroni and cheese. 

Conditions of severe illness in the Far North are different from 
those of ordinary civilized surroundings, even in an outpost of 
civilization such as Herschel Island, and may therefore have inter- 
est justifying description. My treatment had been in many ways 
the opposite of the orthodox way with typhoid. They had not 
realized that I had typhoid and I had thus so far mercifully es- 
caped the orthodox treatment of ten years ago, which was still in 
vogue when the medical books of Herschel Island were written. 
But Constable Lamont's case was handled according to these anti- 
quated proprieties. He became steadily worse and just when I 
was lowest with pneumonia he died in his room across the hall. 

Some one now started the idea that this might be typhus. The 
medical books of the island had been hunted up and read by every 
one except me, for, although I had more medical knowledge than 
the rest, it was considered that an invalid must not be allowed to 
read about diseases for fear of some dreadful deteriorating effect 
upon him. One medical book did get into my hands. It was one 
of a three-volume set and contained treatments, where the other 
volumes were devoted to symptoms. I wanted to read about the 
symptoms to be able to decide what my treatment ought to be, 
but those volumes were carefully kept away from me. 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 67^^ 

The idea that the disease might be typhus was at the basis of 
an heroic effort to disinfect the Police barracks with sulphur fumes. 
My room was closed and it was thought that the sulphur fumes 
would not enter, but I was disturbed by the prospect of the night. 
There was an Indian boy waiting on me and I asked him to keep 
my door open all night and also another door leading from a hall- 
way to the outside. Had this been done nothing serious would have 
happened, but the Indian had not appreciated the reasons and with 
an idea that it was getting pretty cold in the house, he closed the 
outer door. I awoke with my room full of sulphur smoke and had 
just strength to knock on the wall loud enough to attract the atten- 
tion of Mr. Seymour, who was about the building although he 
lived in another house. He came into the room, opened the doors 
and windows, and was there not more than two or three minutes, 
yet he told me that he spent several hours in the fresh air before 
he was rid of the severe discomfort caused by the sulphur in his 
lungs. The effect must necessarily have been more severe upon 
me. It may have been the result of this gas or possibly only a 
stage of pneumonia, but the second day after I commenced bleed- 
ing severely from the lungs. This bleeding lasted all day and 
there were two or three relapses. 

It was now decided to move me out of the Police barracks to 
a separate building where Mr. Leo Wittenberg volunteered to nurse 
me, and for the next several weeks he and the Loucheux Indian 
boy were my attendants. Mr. Fry visited me frequently to give 
nursing directions, and Mr. Harding used to come nearly every 
afternoon and sit for hours telling stories. He is one of the most 
interesting story tellers I know and I always looked forward greatly 
to his visits. 

But the convalescence was going badly. Just as soon as it had 
become clear that I had had typhoid I was put on the diet which 
used to be considered appropriate. The common belief was that 
it should be milk. Here there was nothing available but the ordi- 
nary tinned milk and a variety of powdered milk. My belief was 
that if I were allowed to eat the hearty foods for which I hungered 
I should probably have a better chance of getting well, and I used 
to argue elaborately and, it seemed to me, convincingly for a chance 
at a square meal. I explained how the old idea of feeding typhoid 
patients on milk only was now antiquated and that many of the 
best hospitals will give a typhoid patient as much food as they 
would a healthy laboring man. It exasperated me sometimes and 
at other times it made me laugh as heartily as my condition would 



ftfSO THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

allow to find that my most conclusive arguments were considered 
only as examples of the cunning of delirium. It seemed to me clear 
that if this went on I should die of starvation. To a man who 
thinks himself as much of an expert on scurvy as I do, it seemed 
equally clear that my diet would bring on scurvy. This I did 
perhaps not need to mind, for I knew how to cure scurvy if only 
my directions for doing so were not considered also the cunning 
of delirium. ' 

In February when I was down with the pneumonia I realized 
that I was in for an illness of weeks and perhaps months, even 
should it have a fortunate issue. Then I sent a message to Stor- 
kerson directing him to take command of the spring exploratory 
operations and to make an ice drift such as I had planned, or else 
the best exploratory journey he could with a destination either in 
Wrangel Island or Borden Island. 

Storkerson and most of our able men with all our dogs were off 
on the ice when I began to feel that my one hope of living through 
was to get away from Herschel Island to the hospital at Fort Yukon. 
This is the most northerly hospital in America, about four hundred 
miles south from Herschel Island as one has to travel, seeking the 
mountain passes and following the river channels. I thought that 
riding in a sled in the open air might not hurt me of itself and that 
there was at least a chance of getting there. The desire and prob- 
ability of more substantial food was my chief motive in planning 
this journey. 

It happened that three Indians from the vicinity of Rampart 
House came to Herschel Island for trading purposes and I asked 
for an interview with them. They were reluctant although not 
entirely unwilling to take me south to Fort Yukon, and I proposed 
to the white men that they should allow me to try to reach the 
hospital. But they decided on consultation that such a journey 
would be fatal and could not be allowed. 

During the first stages of my illness the commanding officer 
of the Police had been absent. Inspector Tupper had left for Fort 
Yukon and the new officer, my old friend Phillips, had not arrived 
from Macpherson, although he came home shortly after I was 
moved out of the barracks into the separate house. While the 
Indians were still with us I talked with him and convinced him 
that it would be best to try to take me to Fort Yukon, but later 
he allowed his opinion to be outweighed by that of the others. 
The best thing that could be agreed on was an urgent letter to be 
sent by one of the Indians to Dr. Grafton Burke of the Episcopal 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 681 

hospital at Fort Yukon, urging him to come to Herschel Island if 
he could. 

I think it was before this that Mr. Fry told me that he was 
expecting Archdeacon Hudson Stuck to arrive from the west early 
in April, and it now became my main hope and dream that the 
Archdeacon might arrive in time, for I felt sure that he would 
stand with me and probably undertake himself my transfer to the 
hospital. But travel conditions are uncertain in the North, and 
any one of dozens of things might have happened to delay the 
Archdeacon or even prevent his coming. I accordingly continued 
my efforts, especially with Inspector Phillips. 

A week after the Indians left my condition kept growing worse 
until every one finally agreed that I was going to die. Then 
Phillips took the stand that if I was going to die, anyway, I might 
as well die as I wanted, trying to get to the hospital. This did not 
meet entirely the views of some of the others, who may have felt 
as my mother said (but probably did not feel) when I went on my 
first expedition north: ''What worries me most is that if you die 
you will not get a Christian burial." There is at Herschel Island 
a very respectable graveyard, growing larger every year, where 
many persons have been buried with all the pomp and circum- 
stance of death. I am sure that if I had died there I should have 
had a very presentable funeral as well as an orthodox one. 

Inspector Phillips now had his mind made up and there was no 
budging him. Constable Brockie was willing to volunteer to take 
me but I believe the Inspector fonnally detailed him for the pur- 
pose. My Indian boy whom I had hired in the delta when I was 
buying dogs, was to go with us, and two Eskimos, Sharyoak and 
Naipaktuna, the latter as guide. Mr. Fry was willing to go along 
to help look after me, although he would not take the responsi- 
bility of being in command. At the instance of some of the white 
men of the island I was asked to sign a paper saying that the jour- 
ney was made at my insistent request and that I took the whole 
responsibility myself in case anything should go wrong. 

I am afraid I have not given a very clear account of this illness 
through three months, and this is not a medical book, anyway. 
But it seems in general that first I had typhoid, then pneumonia, 
then there were two recurrences of severe pleurisy, and through 
the pneumonia and the two pleurisy attacks the alimentary tract 
continued in extremely bad condition and seemed not to be im- 
proving. Typhoid, pneumonia and pleurisy are so common that 
they are not worth describing in themselves, but it is not every 



682 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

one who can have them under such unique circumstances, and for 
me personally my adventures during this time are as interesting 
in retrospect as any others. 

It was in the first week of April [1918] that we left Herschel 
Island. During the last three months I had several times been free 
from fever for a day or two, but for a week before we left Herschel 
Island the fever had been continuous although not high. A sled 
was specially prepared for me with springs taken from a small 
spring bed. I was very comfortable from the start, and at the 
end of the fifteen-mile drive to Stokes Point to every one's sur- 
prise I had no fever. Mr. Fry, now that we were away from 
the settlement, was less inclined to insist on the orthodox liquid 
diet for a typhoid convalescent and I was allowed to eat one of 
my favorite dishes, some frozen raw fish. This seemed to do me 
good and next morning there was still no fever. This was so en- 
couraging that it appeared no longer necessary for Mr. Fry to 
continue with us. He said without the least cynicism or malice 
that as I seemed to be getting along better the more my conduct 
differed from what he thought it ought to be, it would probably 
be as well for me to take the responsibility of doing as I liked, 
letting him stay behind. 

I have told this story much as it now is in my mind but I may 
have given a wrong impression of Mr. Fry. No man could have 
been kinder or more attentive and no one's intentions could possibly 
be better. He had had pneumonia himself, had seen several cases 
of typhoid, and, as I knew very well, the things that he wanted 
me to do were just the things that were considered by the medical 
profession up to perhaps five years ago as the things that should be 
done. No one will criticize him for insisting on the ordinary routine 
of typhoid convalescence. I owe him and every one else at Herschel 
Island my deepest gratitude for their trouble and for their kindness 
and good will. 

Day after day we traveled through unsettled country and day 
after day I had my breakfasts and suppers of meat and fish, some- 
times frozen and raw but sometimes hot, boiled. And I felt better 
and regained flesh, until finally when we arrived at the mouth of 
the Crow River at the trading post of Schultz and Johnson I was 
no longer in great need of the expert care of Mrs. Schultz, who 
before her marriage had been a trained nurse at Fort Yukon. 
But that I did not need the care does not mean that I shall ever 
forget the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Schultz on my arrival. They 
knew about my illness from the Indians who had carried my letter 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 683 

past their place some days before and who ought to be now at 
Fort Yukon. They felt quite certain that Dr. Burke would start 
instantly on a journey north. I might have stayed longer under 
the care of Mrs. Schultz, which was as efficient as any care I might 
expect in the hospital, but I hurried ahead to save Dr. Burke the 
trouble of coming far to meet me. It was easy now to engage 
local help and Constable Brockie and his men turned back here 
with my grateful thanks and the news of my recovery. This news 
would be surprising to the people at Herschel Island except as they 
were prepared for it by what Mr. Fry might have said when he re- 
turned from Stokes Point. 

A local team and driver were engaged to take me on down to 
Rampart House, where Dan Cadzow welcomed me even more 
warmly now than he had eleven years before when I ended here 
my journey on a raft down the Porcupine River. He related that 
when the Indian carrying my message had arrived at Rampart 
House his dogs had been so tired and the journey going so slowly 
that Harry Anthony, another friend from the Porcupine trip of 
1907, had undertaken to hurry the message on. Cadzow felt sure 
that Anthony would have traveled at least twice as fast as the 
Indians and that Dr. Burke was now on his way north. Still, 
with intent to lessen Dr. Burke's trouble, I delayed at Rampart 
House as little as possible and hurried on till we met the Doctor's 
party at Old Rampart, thirty miles below. 

My first meeting with Dr. Burke was a foretaste of the com- 
fortable time I was going to spend under his care at Fort Yukon. 
One of my first questions, characteristic of typhoid convalescents, 
was what I should eat and how much. The answer could not have 
been more satisfactory. "Eat whatever you like, as much as you 
can, and the oftener the better." 

There are certainly no people in the world more hospitable or 
thoughtful than the pioneers of Alaska. They are just far enough 
from the outside world not to be weaned from the delicacies of 
the cities, with which they yet have the greatest trouble in keeping 
themselves supplied. Chickens and eggs, fresh fruits and vegeta- 
bles are considered by them necessities and are valued beyond 
anything that can be appreciated farther south. Spring was ap- 
proaching, and thinking that I must be longing for these things 
as many times more than they as I had been longer without them, 
every family at Fort Yukon had contributed some delicacy for 
Dr. Burke to carry to Herschel Island. One woman had sent a 
dozen apples, another a roast chicken, and so on, with all the things 



684 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

that they considered best and most tempting. I was almost ashamed 
that not one of these delicacies appealed to me in itself, although 
no one could appreciate more keenly the sentiment which they 
represented. 

Mrs. Schultz had talked of how much she had longed for this 
or that thing which Dr. Burke had brought me. I tried to com- 
promise so that she might profit through my forgetfulness of south- 
ern food fashions as far as was possible without giving offense 
to my friends at Fort Yukon. I asked Dr. Burke's advice on this 
point, and when he was convinced that my tastes were really as 
perverted as I said, he suggested that if I were to keep a quarter 
of each kind of thing sent to me, forwarding the rest to Mrs. 
Schultz, the women at Fort Yukon would probably feel quite all 
right about it. So I kept one of the chickens, two or three of the 
apples, some of the gingerbread, and so on through the list. 
Judging from Mrs. Schultz' thanks and the kindness of every one 
at Fort Yukon, I have concluded that no one was offended and 
that everything went as it should. Those that hankered for them 
got the chicken, eggs and fruit while I ate huge meals of moose 
and caribou which I much preferred. 

We were more than half-way from Old Rampart to Fort Yukon 
when, April 24th, Archdeacon Stuck and Walter Harper caught up 
to us. They had arrived at Herschel Island a few days after we 
left. On his way east along the coast from Point Barrow the 
Archdeacon had learned of my illness from Captain Hadley at 
Barter Island and had hurried on to Herschel Island with the in- 
tention of doing just what I had hoped he would do^ — taking me to 
the Fort Yukon hospital. They had now come south by a dif- 
ferent route. 

Archdeacon Stuck's book, "A Winter Circuit of our Arctic 
Coast," is to me all the more delightful because he finds abundant 
leisure to digress on all sorts of things only indirectly concerned 
with his story. That is the advantage of writing a book about the 
journey of half a year instead of trying to deal with five years, as 
we have had to do — not that I could compete with him in this 
field in any case. In the account of how he proceeded eastward 
along the Alaska coast, he mentions picking up the news of my 
illness and how he formed the plan of bringing me with him. On 
page 346 is his mention of the meeting: 

"By five o'clock we were moving again, and a long journey of 
thirteen hours — ^the dogs doing much better than in the daytime — 
brought us out not only to John Herbert's place but to the com- 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 685 

bined parties of Mr. Stefansson and Dr. Burke, who had met at 
the Rampart House and were thus far on their way to Fort Yukon. 

"It was a very happy reunion for Dr. Burke and myself, and I 
was greatly pleased to meet Mr. Stefansson and to find him so 
much improved. The folks at Herschel Island doubted if he 
would reach Fort Yukon alive, but I was not surprised to find him 
mended. I think that had he stayed in the little cabin where he 
lay so long sick, with several zealous amateur practitioners doing 
their rival best for him, he would very likely have died." 

Three days later we arrived at St. Stephen's Hospital, Fort 
Yukon, and I was so far recovered that I walked without assistance 
from the gate to the house. Some enterprising Alaska journalist 
later wrote a vivid story printed in many newspapers about my 
hardships and sufferings on a four hundred-mile journey over snow- 
covered arctic mountains from Herschel Island to Fort Yukon "in 
a neck-and-neck race with Death." On the said race I never no- 
ticed the hardships, probably through lack of the journalistic in- 
stinct. I enjoyed each day the events thereof and rejoiced in the 
increasing certainty of recovery. If the reader insists that on such 
a journey under such conditions there must be hardships, I shall 
not argue the point. Perhaps I don't know what the word means. 
But I do know that on the twenty-seven-day journey I gained in 
weight thirty pounds. 

From the windows of my room in St. Stephen's Hospital I could 
look south across the Yukon River and across the Arctic Circle 
into the "Temperate Zone." Not only by this sign but by many 
others was my polar voyage over. From the isolation and virgin 
peace of the North we had come first to Herschel Island with car- 
pets and rocking-chairs and news from "the world" thrice a year or 
oftener; now we were at Fort Yukon with a wireless bulletin coming 
in every day at noon. The Germans were crushing their way every 
day nearer Paris and their guns were shelling it (April, 1918) . The 
electric sensory nerves of civilization reach thus far north already, 
and ours was part of the painful and breathless suspense of the 
whole world. Both for good and for evil I was home after five 
years. 

On the whole expedition I had much to be grateful for whenever 
we touched an outpost of civilization. At Nome, at Barrow, at 
Herschel I am under debts of kindness that I desire to pay but have 
not the means. A list of those who were kind and helpful would 
be nearly a census of these places. So it was at Fort Yukon. In 
the Hospital, in the Government Wireless Station, in every private 



686 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 

house was the courtesy, the boundless hospitality, the considerate 
kindness that can never be forgotten. To name all who were kind 
would be a long roster and would tax the reader's patience; to name 
any and not others would be invidious. 

After a convalescence of three months at St. Stephen's Hos- 
pital, the journey was simple — by river steamers up the Yukon to 
Dawson and White Horse; by railway south to Skagway and more 
frontier hospitality at the frontier's most southerly outpost, and by 
ship to Vancouver and Victoria where I met the crew of the Polar 
Bear to pay them off at the Navy Yard from which we had sailed 
nearly five and a half years before. They had sailed the Polar Bear 
from her winter quarters at Barter Island, to Nome. There she had 
been sold and the crew had come south from Nome to Seattle by 
passenger steamer. 

There were left in the Far North still carrying on the work of 
the expedition only Storkerson and his four faithful comrades, the 
story of whose travels over the polar sea for eight months, with an 
ice floe for a ship, is told in the Appendix to this volume. 

I reached New York in time to join there in the true joy of the 
False Armistice, and helped in Toronto to celebrate the real ending 
of the war from which we had been more nearly shielded than any 
citizens of the civilized world. 



It is difficult to summarize briefly scientific work that requires 
a number of volumes for its proper elucidation. The large scien- 
tific staff of the expedition brought back information in many 
fields. This is now being published by the Department of the Naval 
Service at Ottawa. Three octavo volumes are already printed and 
the work is going forward steadily. At least fifteen more volumes 
are already partly or wholly written. It is probable that the com- 
plete scientific results will be more than twenty volumes and per- 
haps towards thirty. It will naturally take a number of years to 
get all of these ready for the press. 

Men will differ according to their viewpoint on the comparative 
importance of the various results. The botanical and zoological re- 
ports and the geological ones are more easily than others translated 
into terms of money and economic progress. The discovery of new 
land gives a few more spots of color to our maps and forms, there- 
fore, a substantial addition to our knowledge of the world we live 
in, substantial not only in that whoever chooses can go to these 



THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 687 

islands and walk on them but also in the sense that we can easily 
objectify them through representation on maps. 

The very diversity and volume of the scientific results of the ex- 
pedition makes the task of summarizing them really hopeless. Mem- 
bers of the staff would doubtless differ with me, but as they are 
not writing this particular book but rather one or another of the 
scientific reports, I shall offer here my opinion that the most valuable 
result of the expedition will be not any of its concrete achievements 
but rather the general change in the trend of the world's thought 
which should follow from a broad consideration of all that was done 
and of how it was all done. Those who go to China and Turkey 
are less impressed with the few strange things they see than with 
the commonplaceness of the general average. It is not only igno- 
rance but also romance that retreats before the advance of knowl- 
edge. Every geographic discoverer must plead guilty to making the 
world poorer in romance. He does so in exact proportion as he 
makes it richer in knowledge. 

This expedition has contributed materially towards making easy 
what once was difficult, and safe the things that used to be consid- 
ered dangerous. It is human nature to undervalue whatever lands are 
distant and to consider disagreeable whatever is different. But 
we have brought the North a good deal closer and have made it 
look more than it used to like Michigan or Switzerland. To the 
members of our expedition the glamorous and heroic Polar Regions 
are gone and in their place is a friendly but a commonplace coun- 
try. To the reader the same will be true in proportion as he suc- 
ceeds in seeing, either through this narrative or through our technical 
volumes, that it is the mental attitude of the southerner that makes 
the North hostile. It is chiefly our unwillingness to change our 
minds which prevents the North from changing into a coimtry to be 
used and lived in just like the rest of the world. 



APPENDIX 



DEIFTING IN THE BEAUFORT SEA 

[By Storker T. Storkerson, in MacLean's Magazine, 
March 15 and April 1, 1920.] 

When in 1914 I was with Vilhjalmur Stefansson on the first trip 
across the Beaufort Sea from Martin Point, Alaska, to Banks Island, 
it was a matter of considerable annoyance to me while we were living 
off the country to have to haul heavily meat-laden sleds through the 
soft snow in the spring. I could never see any necessity after our gro- 
ceries were gone to have more than one or two days' rations on our sleds, 
because it appeared to me evident that when we needed meat and stopped 
to look for it it could always be obtained. 

While the Commander and I had the same ideas on the subject, our 
other companion continued pessimistic. When he saw a seal he thought 
we had better get it because no one knew what might happen or when 
we would see another. So the Commander killed it and a good many 
besides to please him. This resulted in a great amount of useless hard 
work as in the latter part of the spring, when ^varm weather came, the 
snow was soft and the runners of the heavily-laden sled would sink 
through, and as we had no toboggan bottom on our sled the benches 
would scrape along the surface of the snow-drifts, acting as brakes, 
which would always stop the dogs unless we helped them, and a good 
many times our help was not sufficient to keep it going. At times it 
would take us several hours to travel a quarter of a mile. This could 
all have been avoided if our comrade had been of the same attitude of 
mind as the Commander and I. Work would have been considerably 
less, as the sled would have been lighter, and naturally our speed of 
traveling would have been greater than it actually was. 

This skeptical attitude of the men towards the Commander^s plan 
to live off the country on his exploring trips caused us a good many in- 
conveniences. The men never were willing to leave camp and start to 
live off the country right away. They always wanted to have at starting 
as much food on the sleds as we could possibly take with us. If we 
could have retained the same men during the whole expedition the 
later sled trips might have been different in outfit, and I am sure the 
results would have been better; but, as we were continually breaking 

689 



690 APPENDIX 

in new men, we had to start out from our headquarters each time with 
the same kind of food that previous Arctic explorers had carried and 
rely upon teaching our men our method of living off the country grad- 
ually before our groceries gave out and we began living on meat only. 
Always when the men returned from the trips they were enthusiastic 
about the life they had lived and the meat diet. They got to like the 
kind of meat and they said they had never felt better in their lives. 

PREPARING FOR OUR SPRING WORK 

What had been the rule for previous years was also to be the rule 
the winter of 1917 and 1918. A couple of our men were willing enough 
to start living on meat right away, but the majority, including of course 
the new men that were engaged the summer of 1917, said that the meat 
diet might be all right and, while they had no objection to living on it 
when the time came, they wanted as much food taken along as possible. 
Although we knew it to be a waste of energy to haul sleds loaded with 
rations, we had to do it in order to make our men feel safe and to satisfy 
their individual food prejudices which depended on the variety of food 
they had been used to — the less the variety they had been used to the 
greater the prejudice against trying anything new. 

Our preparations for the spring work of 1918 commenced on No- 
vember 25, 1917, when while in camp at Herschel Island and after we 
had found that we could buy the needed supplies from the trading com- 
panies in the country, I received instructions from the Commander to 
proceed to Barter Island and superintend the making of the equipment 
needed for the ice journey of our fifth year in the spring of 1918. Owing 
to stormy weather it was not before the morning of November 27th 
that I was able to start west with one team of seven dogs hauling a load 
of seven hundred pounds. After being delayed by considerable stormy 
weather and stopping over here and there in order to buy supplies from 
Eskimos and white men, it was not until the 9th of December that I 
reached our headquarters at Barter Island. 

Upon arrival there I immediately had the making of the outfit and 
equipment started. For the short time at my disposal I had a great 
amount of work to do, and every available man had to be put to work 
and kept at it steadily. New sleds had to be built of the sled material 
we had succeeded in buying; rations for men and dogs had to be put 
up and packed properly; outfits of clothing for about twenty-five men 
had to be made; arms and ammunition had to be overhauled and packed; 
hunting implements, tents and camping gear, canvas boat covers and 
boat frames had to be made; and as we had at headquarters only a small 
amount of supplies for the spring work and needed for the maintenance 
of the expedition's complement at Barter Island a great amount of 
supplies which could only be had from the Hudson's Bay Company stores 
at Herschel Island or from H. Liebes and Company's trading post at 



APPENDIX 691 

Demarcation Point, we had a deal of freighting to do. So, after giving 
orders to Captain Hadley as to getting ready the previously mentioned 
equipment, I again set out for Herschel Island to buy additional supplies 
and have them and the already bought supplies freighted west, taking 
with me all available sleds, men and dogs, and hiring additional men 
and teams wherever I could on the way. 

Arriving at the Island December 29th and receiving no news of the 
Commander who had late in December gone eastward and up the 
Mackenzie River to buy additional dogs and dog food, I bought my sup- 
plies, collected the supplies already bought by the Commander and started 
on my return to Barter Island, December 31st. 

On arriving there January 4th I found that during my absence the 
work of preparing the equipment for the exploring work had progressed 
well under the direction of Captain Hadley and it now looked as though 
we could easily leave headquarters for Cross Island, the starting point we 
had chosen for the ice journey, at the time we had first planned — Feb- 
ruary 1, 1918. In journeys such as we planned it is important to start 
by the first daylight after the midwinter darkness so as to have the 
advantage of the low temperatures which then prevail for cementing 
quickly together the ice that is broken now and again by the gales. 

STEFANSSON TAKEN ILL 

Five days later, on January 9th, when the preparations were nearly 
completed, an Indian messenger arrived from the east, bringing a 
letter from the Commander saying he had been taken ill at the Mackenzie 
and now was in bed at Herschel Island, to which place he requested me 
to come immediately. 

So, leaving the remaining work again in the care of Captain Hadley, 
I started for Herschel Island, where I arrived on January 24th, finding 
the Commander in bed and suffering from the latter stages of typhoid 
fever, from which disease, by the account of himself and others, he was 
getting better but he was still a pretty sick man. Immediately on my 
arrival he was anxious to talk about the affairs of the expedition and 
commenced asking how the work of preparing our equipment was 
progressing and discussing our plans for the proposed work, which had 
been to start north from Cross Island at north latitude 70.5°, west 
longitude 148°, with all our available force of men, sleds and dogs, and 
proceed to north latitude 75° or 76°, thence on a great circle course west 
towards Wrangel Island or Siberia. This, I now was told, was not the 
thing for us to do, as the Commander had received information while 
up the Mackenzie that the Norwegian explorer. Captain Amundsen, and 
the American, Captain Bartlett, each on his separate expedition, in- 
tended with their ships to go into the ice somewhere to the north or west 
of Point Barrow and try to drift with the current across the Polar 
Basin. This meant that they would explore the territory through which 



692 APPENDIX 

we intended to go to Wrangel Island, and, as our object on the Canadian 
Arctic Expedition was to acquire as much scientific information as pos- 
sible and not to compete with other explorers but to work in con- 
junction with them, the Commander now told me he had decided that 
the best thing for us to do would be to go north from the before-men- 
tioned starting point to latitude 77° or 78°, thence in a great circle 
course east toward Prince Patrick Island, thence south across that 
island, crossing McClure Strait to the Bay of Mercy, thence overland to 
Cape Kellett, where we would arrive early in the summer and in time 
to meet the whaling ships with which we could return to civilization. 

As an alternative to the first plan he had another which he preferred 
and would follow if men could be had that were willing to go with him. 
Starting from Cross Island he planned to go north two hundred or 
three hundred miles offshore to north latitude 74° or 75° and from there 
send all unnecessary men and dogs to shore, the advance party camping 
on the ice and drifting with it in order to take observations and sound- 
ings, determining the currents in that part of the ocean besides secur- 
ing data on meteorology, zoology, oceanography, etc. The discovery of 
new land was also possible. The only drawback was that he thought we 
possibly might not get men willing to go on a trip of that kind. It was 
unique, the like had never been undertaken by previous explorers, and 
so might be considered dangerous. 

So the thing to do first was to get the Commander in shape to travel 
as soon as possible, with which in mind I set about nursing him as well 
as I could, being assisted and advised by every white person there who 
all thought they knew something about doctoring. And it spoke well 
for the Commander's constitution that on the morning of February 5th 
he had so improved that he thought it time to send me west to head- 
quarters to attend to the final preparations and have everything ready 
against his arrival there, which would be in the near future, as he thought 
he would be able to leave Herschel for Barter Island in three or 
four days. 

While the dogs were being hitched up in preparation for my depar- 
ture he came out to see me off and bid me Godspeed and good-by till 
we should meet at the beginning of the ice journey. This kindness and 
consideration cost him dear, as the exposure that he subjected himself 
to then, I afterwards learned, caused him a very serious relapse from 
which he barely escaped with his life and which prevented him from 
taking part in that spring's exploratory work, making it absolutely 
necessary for him to return to civilization for medical aid. It was not 
until eighteen months later that I again met him at Banff in the 
Canadian Rockies. 

What had happened to the Commander I did not know before Feb- 
ruary 13th, when in camp at Demarcation Point our dog driver, the 
Eskimo Emiu (Split- the- Wind), arrived from Herschel Island with let- 
ters from the Commander which he, being unable to write, had dictated 



APPENDIX 693 

to one of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police constables, telling me 
about what had happened to him and that it was impossible for him on 
that account to proceed with the work himself and so putting me in 
charge of the expedition's exploratory work, giving me a free hand in 
everything and asking me to do the best I possibly could. This change 
of affairs surprised me, but the necessity of getting the earliest possible 
start on the ice journey made that surprise short-lived. I immediately 
commenced to get ready for my departure to headquarters at Barter 
Island, where I arrived February 19th. Five days later I had the greatest 
part of the supplies on the road from Barter to Cross Island and on 
February 28th I left headquarters with the last two sleds, teams and 
men for our point of departure, where, owing to stormy weather, I 
did not arrive before March 11th. 

On my arrival at Cross Island I immediately acquainted the men 
with the state of affairs and the change of command and outlined the 
plans which the Commander had spoken to me about at Herschel Island, 
explaining to them that the plan of drifting for one year on the ice in 
the Arctic Ocean would be by far the most valuable scientifically. But 
although they admitted the great scientific value, none of them were 
willing to undertake a trip of that kind. They all professed a desire 
to return to civilization as soon as they possibly could, saying that 
they had been in the Arctic long enough, that they thought they had 
done what could be expected of them, and as they were willing to 
undertake the trip with me north to latitude 77° or 78°, thence to Prince 
Patrick Island and to Cape Kellett on Banks Island, they thought that 
the expedition and the Government could not help but be satisfied with 
the scientific results of the expedition in general, and at the same time 
they would be able to return to civilization the following summer, 
which was what they desired most. So, not being able to get men 
fo.r the drifting trip, I had to be satisfied with attempting the trip to 
Prince Patrick and Banks Island. During the following three days 
I put everything in order and had adequate equipment for that trip 
loaded on my sleds in readiness for our departure. 

WE START OUT ON THE ICE 

On the morning of March 15, 1918, I started northward over the 
ice with twelve men, fifty-six dogs, and eight sleds, with about eight 
thousand pounds of provisions and equipment of all kinds which I 
deemed necessary for that kind of work. We camped that night thir- 
teen miles offshore on moving sea ice, having immediately upon enter- 
ing on it noticed its fairly rapid westward drift before the easterly 
wind. 

Ten days later, on March 25th, we were about sixty miles from land, 
having passed through the dangerous rough ice belt which always exists 
between the main pack and shore. Traveling through this belt snow 



694 APPENDIX 

was scarce and we used tents to sleep in at night but as soon as we 
came to the old ice pack where we could be comfortable because good 
snow could be found, we commenced to live in snowhouses. We pre- 
ferred them to tents, which during the Arctic winter should be used 
only in emergencies. 

Traveling mostly over old ice, the going getting better the farther 
we got from shore, we proceeded till the night of April 3rd when 
we were about one hundred and five miles north of Cross Island and 
at north latitude 72°, west longitude 147°. On the following day I sent 
the first support party, consisting of our chief engineer, Herman 
Kilian, in command of two men, two sleds and nineteen dogs, on their 
return to Barter Island. Their equipment naturally was the poorest we 
had. Early the following morning they bade us good-by. Taking with 
them my reports to the Commander, they started for home while a few 
minutes later we proceeded northward with our remaining nine men, 
thirty-six dogs and five sleds. 

As days went by the old ice floes continually increased in size, 
and over them we found traveling good with a little road-cutting here 
and there through ridges bordering the floes. In the forenoon of April 
8th we came to an old ice floe which it took us three hours to cross, 
its diameter being about seven miles. Upon our arrival at the northern 
edge of this floe we were stopped by an open lead, across which in places 
it was impossible to see the ice to the north. To cross it by sled-boat 
was impossible on account of the young ice and the width of the lead. 
Following along to find a place where both sides would meet had some- 
times in the past been a successful method of getting over a lead and 
I intended to try this once more; but, when from an ice hummock 
about fifteen or twenty feet above sea level the lead could be seen dis- 
appearing to the east and to the west wide open, there was nothing 
for it but to build our house near by and wait till the lead should 
close. 

On the night following our arrival at the lead the easterly wind 
which had continued blowing steadily since our departure from shore 
increased in force and shortly was blowing a gale, with of course the 
accompanying thick snow which made it hard for any one to be 
outside. So during the time spent in camp there no hunting was done 
except a few hours on the first day after our arrival at the lead when 
seals seemed to be numerous and we shot and retrieved three. With 
that strong wind blowing it was not long before we had considerable 
evidence of pressure through the shaking and vibration of the ice. At 
the edge of the lead considerable crushing could be seen when I walked 
over there. It was evident that the floe on which we were camped was 
rapidly drifting to the northeast before the wind. 

When I was with Leffingwell and Mikkelsen on their ice trip in 
1907* we had, on returning towards shore, experienced a rapid west- 

* See Ejnar Mikkelsen: "Conquering the Arctic Ice," Chapters VI and VII. 



APPENDIX 695 

ward drift with easterly winds, and when with Stefansson in 1914 from 
Martin Point north to latitude 74° and east to Banks Island we had 
during April and May had easterly winds before which the ice drifted 
rapidly to the west away from our destination and in doing so opened 
wide leads which delayed our progress considerably. We had to wait 
as long as ten days at one lead before it closed sufficiently to enable 
us to cross in our sled-boat. Since then we had learned about the 
westward drift and the deplorable end of our flagship, the Karluh; all 
this data pointed to and made us practically certain of the existence 
of a permanent westerly current in the Beaufort Sea between the 
parallels of north latitude 70° and 74°. 

When leaving shore on this our fifth ice trip I had immediately 
noticed the westward drift and so had, when traveling, till April 8th 
always headed one or two points to the east of the north course I wanted 
to travel, so as to counteract the westward drift. Where with Lef- 
fingwell and Mikkelsen we had succeeded in making the trip easily and 
again with Stefansson in 1914 we arrived at Banks Island safely, the 
trip we were now attempting for the Canadian Arctic Expedition greatly 
exceeded any of the previous trips we had undertaken as to distance 
to be traveled; so much so that, when I found that we were stuck at 
the wide lead in a strong easterly gale during which we were drifting 
rapidly west, I commenced to think that the chances of our ever being 
able to reach our destination and make the intended round trip xhat 
spring were almost nil. I consequently commenced to cast about for 
other things to do instead. 



I CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS 

I wanted to follow the Commander's plan and drift for one year 
with the ice, and so determined to make a strong bid for the support 
of my men to do that work. I explained to them all the previously 
written facts and why we possibly would not be able to make the trip 
we had agreed to make and that the drifting was the most valuable 
thing that we could do for the expedition under the circumstances; 
I explained that all the other work we could possibly do that year 
would be of small account and hardly worth while compared with 
drifting and should not be undertaken unless they refused to stay 
with me and drift and do their duty by the expedition. Following 
this talk I called for volunteers to stay with me and drift for one year 
in the Arctic Ocean, offering the wages the Commander had set for 
that work. 

I am glad to say that when things were put up to them and it 
meant failure or success, the following five of my men came to the 
front : Second Officer August Masik, Seaman Adelbert Gumaer, Seaman 
E. Lome Knight, Seaman Martin Kilian, and the boy, Fred Volki. 
The remaining members of my party refused point blank. But five 



696 APPENDIX 

men were more than I needed, as I intended to have only five men 
in the advance party including myself. So I sent the boy Volki home 
with the returning support party. 

As my plans had been changed, it was of course to our best interests 
to have the second support party sent back to shore as soon as possible, 
with which object in view we anxiously awaited the end of the south- 
easterly storm, which was slow in coming. It was not before April 
14th that it moderated sufficiently to enable us to get a set of observa- 
tions which put us at north latitude 73° 3' and west longitude 148° 32', 
about a hundred and ninety miles north of the Colville delta. As soon 
as observations had been taken I set about having the equipment of the 
support party made ready and at night they started south and for home. 
The party consisted of five men under the command of Chief Officer 
Aarnout Castel, with twenty dogs and one sled, carrying our personal 
letters and my last report to the Commander. 

So our last communication with civilization was severed and my 
party of five men, with sixteen dogs, continued to drift, having besides 
our equipment exactly one hundred and one days' full rations for men 
and dogs. 

In order to live safely and comfortably on the ice for one year it 
was of the greatest importance for us immediately to direct all our 
energies to hunting bear and seal so as to procure as soon as possible 
a supply of meat to take us past the period of poor hunting which I 
knew was coming later. The supplies brought from shore I wanted to 
save for use next year on the journey ba«k ashore, should we decide 
to travel during the midwinter darkness when hunting is difficult. 
Groceries, pemmican and the like are far more portable than meat unless 
it be dried. I desired also to save our kerosene for next year and 
wanted to commence at once using seal's fat exclusively for fuel. 
Therefore, the day after the departure for shore of the second support 
party I commenced to explore the surrounding ice for game and the 
best hunting places. This resulted in the discovery that the best 
hunting grounds lay to the east on the great stretches of young ice 
that now represented the old lead which had frozen over. 

So, on the following day, April 16th, I had our camp and equipment 
transferred to a point three miles east, centrally located for the young- 
ice hunting grounds. In the afternoon of the same day as the effect 
of pressure a lead opened up which gave us our first chance to hunt. 
We took advantage of it and at night we returned to camp, having killed 
five seals which gave us approximately 450 pounds of meat and fat, a 
fine addition to our stock of provisions. 

From this time on the greatest part of the time of my men was 
spent in hunting to obtain food for ourselves and our dogs while I 
attended to the scientific part of the work, which consisted in keeping 
a diary of everything worthy of note, taking astronomical observations. 





Eskimo Family at Our Table — Collinson Point. 
Point Barrow Family. Storkerson's Family. 





The Burberry Tent — Inner Cover. 

Martin Kilian and the Monument He Built at Storkbrson's Farthest 

The Old Burberry Tent — Double Covers. 



APPENDIX 697 

whenever conditions were favorable, to keep track of our drift and to be 
able to place our soundings correctly on the chart. One of my men, 
Martin Kilian, I detailed to keep a meteorological record which was 
strictly and continually supervised by myself. 

After our first day's hunt at our new camp (which we did not have 
occasion to leave in the months that we spent drifting) hunting was 
done whenever a chance offered. Days in succession the ice would be 
closed up tight, no water could be seen anywhere and on these days 
there was no hunting. But whenever pressure occurred from a change 
of wind or other causes, leads would open here and there, thus giving 
us open water in which to seal. Our stock of meat and seal fat at times 
ran low. Eepeatedly, in fact, we were down to our last meal. But 
always before it was gone we had a chance to hunt and so replenish. 
By the middle of June we had added to our original supply of pro- 
visions (brought from shore) 42 seals and 4 polar bears, about three 
tons of clear, boneless meat. This number of animals besides giving 
us and our dogs all the meat we needed for daily use, was also ample 
to provide us with a sufficient supply to last through the middle of 
summer when hunting is difficult. 

After the weather got warm in the latter part of June and the snow 
and the ice commenced to melt, the fresh water drained off the ice 
and collected in a layer on top of the salt sea water in the open leads. 

Seals usually lose some of their fat during the early summer and 
so barely float in the salt water when killed. Therefore, it can be easily 
understood that a seal which barely floats in salt water will sink when 
the water is fresh. This was what happened. The layer of fresh water 
on top of the salt was so deep that with our equipment the animals 
could not be retrieved. After we had killed a seal we often had the 
dissatisfaction of lying in our boat above it and watching it sink down 
through the fresh surface layer ten to twenty feet and then float away 
on the underlying salt water, without being able to do anything to 
prevent it. When we commenced our drift we had only 1,000 rounds of 
ammunition and so could not afford to waste any. 

We therefore had to refrain from shooting seals in this fresh surface 
water, though we might be able to retrieve an occasional one. So we 
ceased hunting for a period of two months from the middle of June 
to the middle of August. At the end of that time the salt sea and 
the fresh water had had a chance to be mixed by the winds and when 
young ice first commenced to form at the approach of winter the amount 
of fat on the seals had also increased appreciably so that they floated 
with ease and so could be retrieved. Then our hunting was re-com- 
menced and from the latter part of August till the time that we started 
on our return to shore, we procured 54 more seals, giving us a total 
of 96 seals and 6 polar bears secured during the eight months that we 
spent on the sea ice. 



698 APPENDIX 

SUMMER WARMTH ON THE ICE 

By the middle of April the sun was fairly high and on ealm and 
clear days it gave enough heat to melt the snow, especially in the 
vicinity of our sleds or anything else of a dark shade. Therefore, the 
time for snowhouses was past and we had to start to use our tents. 
Till the middle of June we used a single tent inside a snow wall with 
one of our canvas boat covers as a second roof, thus protecting our- 
selves from the cold nights and the occasional blizzards. By the middle 
of June there was no snow to use for walls. As a single tent was not 
enough to keep us comfortable, I had another larger tent made of 
one of our extra sled covers and set up with the smaller tent inside 
with a space of about 10 inches separating the two tents. This kind of 
camp we used from June till the time we started for shore and it proved 
very comfortable and satisfactory in every way. 

After the thaw commenced the ice was naturally always wet, so we 
experienced great difficulty in keeping our bedding dry. Most all our 
clothing and bedding was made of reindeer skins and so, in order to 
be made to last and to be comfortable, they had to be protected from 
the wet. These conditions I had anticipated and had provided against 
by keeping two more sleds than I needed for traveling. The reason 
was that all our sleds had toboggan bottoms or platforms between the 
runners and underneath the benches to make them slide easily through 
the rough ice and to prevent the benches from being broken by hitting 
against the ice snags. When the thawing commenced I had the tobog- 
gan bottoms removed from under the two extra sleds and of them made 
a platform. This was placed inside our tent and served as a bed where 
the five of us could sleep at night and sit in the daytime when there 
was nothing else to do. To this platform more than anything else is 
due the fact that we spent the summer on the ice in comfort. With- 
out it our clothing, and particularly our bedding, would have been wet 
in a very short time and so would have rotted, leaving us without 
anything to sleep in. Such an eventuality would have compelled us to 
turn shoreward sooner than we did. 

HOW WE COOKED OUR FOOD 

In our equipment were included the usual appliances for cooking 
approved by modern explorers, the efficient primus stoves in which 
kerosene or distillate are burned in vaporized form. Of the latter oil 
we had at the commencement of our drift about 18 gallons. This if 
used sparingly would probably have lasted us three months or more. 
But this kind of fuel was better suited for use when traveling than 
anything which could be obtained on the ice. As noted above, I there- 
fore early stopped the use of the distillate and instead burned the fat 
of seals and bears. At first our cooking was done indoors with the 



APPENDIX 699 

ordinary smokeless and odorless Eskimo lamps and wicks, but later 
when the weather got warmer so that we did not need the heat in our 
tent, the lamps were abandoned and our cooking was done outside. A 
fireplace was made out of a five-gallon kerosene can, placing two small 
iron bars on top of it on which the pots rested. It was a quick method 
of preparing a meal but available outdoors only because of the smoke 
and odor. 

OUR FLOATING HOME 

The floe at the northern edge of which our camp was situated and 
on which we drifted through the summer of 1918 from the 8th of 
April to the 9th of October, can best be described as a large island of 
ice about seven miles wide and at least 15 miles long. This latter 
estimate is less than the real length of the floe but I say 15 miles because 
I only explored 15 miles of it. It may have been 30 miles long for all 
I know. In relation to the smaller surrounding floes it acted exactly 
as land does. The smaller floes would be more affected by the winds 
and would drift faster back and forth, depending on the direction of 
the winds. This fact was of great advantage to us in that with west 
wind we would have open water to the east. The smaller floes would 
drift away from the point at which we had our camp. With east wind 
the small ice on the west side would drift to the west, so we nearly always 
had open water in which to hunt seals. 

From an elevation close by our camp the panorama presenting 
itself impressed me exactly as that of a certain kind of land. The 
color of course was the bluish white of ice but the contour of the hills, 
the ridges and the levels in between and in which numerous small 
lakes and ponds were visible, was exactly like certain stretches of prairie 
I have seen in the midwestern United States and Canada. This simi- 
larity of old ice to land is well known. 

The thickness of the ice at our camp, judging by the amount of it 
visible above the level of the sea, I should say would be about 50 or 
60 feet. This extraordinary thickness was just local and the average 
of the whole floe naturally would be much less, probably less than 20 
feet. 

THE GAME WE SAW 

Before the return of the second support party when we still were 
only 150 miles from the nearest land, numbers of snow buntings came 
to visit us. In the summer when we were drifting between the latitude 
of 73° and 74° North, a number of lapland longspurs were seen. In 
the first part of May and the latter part of August a number of dif- 
ferent species of salt water ducks were seen — the king eider, the old 
squaw, and the surf scoter, the first going to the northeast and then 



700 APPENDIX . 

again returning to the southwest; the latter two were seen occasionally 
all through the summer. Of sea gulls there always was an abundance, 
either one species or another. I noticed six species in all, first the 
jaeger gull, the ivory gull, the black-winged large gull, the gray-winged 
large gull, and two species of the smaller gulls of which I do not know 
the names. Besides these, two species of loons were noticed. 

As with the ducks, in May and August beluga whales were seen 
going toward the northeast and returning to the southwest. The seal 
and the polar bear, of course, were always present, the seals in undimin- 
ishing numbers. The polar bears, however, seemed to get fewer in 
the latter part of the summer. When returning to shore I found a 
reason for this, as we met with numbers of them. At the time of the 
freeze-up they evidently came south to hunt on the large expanses of 
young ice near shore. From my observations it has been proved that 
the sea, in the latitudes where we drifted through the summer, teems 
with life of many different species. With my own eyes I have seen 
different kinds of fish both in the water and in the stomachs of seals 
which we had caught. Amphipods and a species of jellyfish commonly 
known as "whale feed" seemed abundant in the water and also were 
found inlthe stomachs of the seals. From what I have seen of condi- 
tions in tfiat part of the Arctic Ocean, I know that there is no scarcity 
of food fir the seal, the whale or the polar bear and so, of course, no 
scarcity c^ food for man. 

THE LEGEND OF THE WESTERN CURRENT 

When 1 made up my mind to drift instead of going to Prince 
Patrick Islind it was because I believed in the existence of a westward 
current in %he Beaufort Sea which might prevent me from getting 
there. I had studied all the obtainable data on the subject and it 
pointed to the existence of a current in a westward direction. So, 
to prove finally the existence of that current, we started to drift, of 
course expecting that we would be carried into the area north of Siberia. 
We had fond hopes even, if the drift were fast enough, of landing on 
the New Siberian Islands or the Franz Josef Islands. 

One, therefore, can easily imagine how puzzling it was to us to 
find that for three months, from April 14 to July 13, we drifted 
steadily towards east before the wind until we reached the longitude of 
144.5° west of Greenwich. On July 14 the wind changed to the 
east and in about six weeks we drifted to the northwest till we reached 
the 151st degree of west longitude. Then the wind changed to the 
southwest again and we drifted to the northeast, reaching our Farthest 
North of 74° North latitude on September 3. From then on until 
October 9, when we started for the shore, we zigzagged back and 
forth before the wind and at the end of 184 days^ drifting we were 70 
miles north by west of our starting point of April 8, having drifted 



APPENDIX 701 

a distance of 440 miles, or an average ef two and four-tenths miles per 
day. 

All this time, while drifting, astronomical observations had been 
taken on nearly every clear day and we eventually obtained a line of 
soundings about 900 miles long. The deepest bottom sounding obtained 
was over 2,500 fathoms at a distance of about 90 miles from the north 
coast of the continent. A distance of forty miles from shore we had 
bottom soundings of over 850 fathoms. The reader can, by looking at 
the accompanying chart, obtain a better idea of the nature of the 
soundings obtained and our drift than from any description. 

I SUFFER FROM ASTHMA 

In the latter part of August I developed asthma. During Sep- 
tember I was very sick and wheezed my way through many sleepless 
nights. Having had no experience with asthma, I had no knowledge of 
what might happen from that disease and feared that I might by it be 
incapacitated from performing the duties evolving on me as the Com- 
mander of the drifting party. The men I had with me were inex- 
perienced and if anything should happen to me there would be danger 
of the whole party being lost. So I made up my mind to cut the trip 
shorter than had been my original intention. One day late in Septem- 
ber I called the men together in front of the tent. 

'We're going to turn back," I said. "Winter is coming on and I'm 
not in shape to look after a party through such conditions as we may 
have to face." 

It was, after all, not so trying a decision to make, for the results 
of our explorations so far had been satisfactory. 

WE START ON OUR RETURN 

So after 1^4 days' drift we started on the return journey, with 55 
days' full rations left of the original supply which had been good for 
101 days. The trip to shore from latitude 73.9° N., in October was a 
unique experience in itself and showed the previously unknown possi- 
bilities of Arctic travel early in the winter."^ We had to cross some 

*This has always been considered, and rightly, the most difficult and 
dangerous season of the whole year to travel, March and April, with intense 
cold and perpetual light are of course the best months. In summer there is 
real water between the broken floes which can be easily negotiated in our 
sled-boats and there is still continuous light. But in October daylight grows 
scarce rapidly and there are nearly continuous snowstorms and fogs. The 
thin ice lies treacherous under a blanket of snow that gives the same appear- 
ance to stretches that would support an elephant and to others that would 
engulf a child at play. The only safety lies in jabbing your ice spear through 
the snow ahead continually to discover if the ice beneath is firm or mushy. 
Storkerson's official report of this journey which would have been (but for the 
skill and judgment of the men who made it) the most difficult and dangerous 



702 APPENDIX 

of the leads in our sled-boats and others on treaeherous new ice. Space 
will not allow me to enter into details of this return trip. It will 
suffice to say that on November 5, 1919, we again reached landfast ice, 
and November 7th we sighted land. Next day we camped on dry 
ground after having lived on sea ice uninterruptedly for 238 days, hav- 
ing experienced neither hunger nor thirst, danger nor hardships. 

THE SCIENTIFIC RESULTS OBTAINED 

The scientific results obtained during the trip are as follows: We 
discovered that no permanent current exists in the Beaufort Sea be- 
tween the North latitudes 72.5° and 74°. All drifts of ice in that ter- 
ritory have been proven by our astronomical observations and our 
meteorological records to be governed by the wind exclusively.* This 
dispels a theory almost universally entertained. 

We have definitely proved that Keenan Land does not exist. The 
drift of our ice floe was right through the territory where Keenan 
Land is marked on the map published in 1912 by the American Geo- 
graphical Society and the American Museum of Natural History, and 
instead of finding land we found a depth of more than 1,600 fathoms 
without reaching bottom. The value of the great number of soundings, 
bottom and no bottom, obtained can only be realized by hydrographers, 
but I might say they are considered valuable. 

We have confirmed what the whole Stefansson Expedition has 
proved, that the Arctic Sea is not as inhospitable as people think. 
My party of five men were able to live for 8 months safely and com- 
fortably on it -and never went without a meal. It is true that I was 
taken sick with asthma, but then people get asthma in every country 
and climate. So far as we could judge we could have lived on the 
ice eight years as easily as eight months. 

After landing in the Colville delta, I proceeded east to Tlaxman 
Island and there obtained another set of observations on the stars 
Vega and Capella, which I had observed before starting on the trip. 

ever attempted in the Arctic, contains a sentence that deserves to become a 
classic. In it he sums up thus a journey over 200 miles of moving and treach- 
erous ice in darkness, fog and storm: ''We started from a point a little over 
200 miles from shore on October 9th and reached land November 8th without 
accident or hardship." It is a little hard to realize that, apart from Storker- 
son's mental attitude toward them and his skill in meeting them, this journey 
had every terror of darkness and ice and storm that has taxed alike the 
strength, courage and descriptive powers of the explorers of the past. There 
was no affectation in Storkerson's simple summary of the journey. He an^ 
notated the statement later by saying: "We took every ordinary precaution 
and no extraordinarj'- circumstance came up." But was it not Napoleon who 
said: "I make circumstances"? [Note by V. Stefansson.] 

*It is possible that further study may show that the ice movement was 
not entirely controlled by the local winds and that Storkerson's statement 
is here too emphatic. [Note by V. Stefansson.] 



APPENDIX 703 

After securing this I was able to get the average rate of my chronom- 
eter for eight months. This place was my point of departure and is 
one of the two or three best determined positions on the northern coast 
of the American continent. The celebrated explorer, Ernest deKoven 
Leffingwell, had his headquarters there for several years. 

I then proceeded east to Demarcation Point and to Herschel Island 
where I spent the winter. In the spring of 1919 I proceeded up the 
Mackenzie Eiver by whale boat with Inspector Phillips of the Royal 
Northwest Mounted Police to Fort Macpherson and there engaged pas- 
sage on the Hudson's Bay Company's steamer to Fort McMurray, 
where I received orders from Ottawa to report to my Commander, 
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, at Banff, Alberta. 

And so ended the fifth and last exploring trip of the Canadian Arctic 
Expedition. 



THE STORY OF THE KARLUK 

or 
Hadley told me the story of the Earluk many times over verbally. 
I could have written it down from what he told me but I preferred 
to have him write it out to be kept as a record. The document as he 
handed it to me is about ten thousand words. But Captain Bartlett 
has already published the full narrative in his book, "The Last Voyage 
of the Karluk, as related by her Master, Robert A. Bartlett, and here set 
down by Ralph T. Hale," Boston, 1916, and I shall consequently con- 
dense Hadley's narrative. I am basing my summary on Hadley rather 
than Bartlett for the interest that is given by a different point of 
view. In Bartlett we have the Newfoundland sailor as influenced by 
his association with Peary and other explorers. Hadley was British 
by birth (from Canterbury, England) but an American by adoption, 
and the typical American whaling officer in his outlook. 

The reader of Hadley's story should remember that he had lived and 
worked with Eskimos under conditions such as he here describes for 
over twenty years. No "polar explorer" in history ever had so long a 
polar experience. This report of Hadley's was written at Barter Island 
the winter of 1917-18 while I was ill with typhoid at Herschel Island. 
Hadley died of influenza during the epidemic in San Francisco the fall 
of 1918, shortly after his return from the expedition. 

Hadley's account follows : I quote certain parts and condense others. 
The matter enclosed in brackets is mine, not Hadley's. 

V. Stefansson, 

Commander Canadian Arctic Expedition. 

You have requested I write the story of the Karluk and her men 
from your leaving the ship in September, 1913, until our rescue by 
the King and Winge and our transfer aboard the IJ. S. Coastguard 
Bear. I shall do so to the best of my memory. 

Shortly after your departure [September 20, 1913] the wind started 
to breeze from the northeast, gradually freshening to a gale before 
morning. At daylight we found that we were drifting to the west 
with water about two miles from us inshore. There was no noticeable 
strain on the ship for several days until we got off Point Tangent. 
There we began to get the pressure and the ice commenced to ridge up 
pretty close to the ship and we got several hard squeezings but nothing 

704 



APPENDIX 705 

too hard. As we drifted toward Point Barrow the wind dropped almost 
to a calm, the current slackened, and by the time we arrived off Cooper 
Island the ice stopped and there was no pressure. This was the last 
week of September. During our stay off Cooper Island no one talked 
about wanting to go ashore except one of the natives, but the Captain 
refused to let him go. We were so near the land and the ice was so 
steady that any one could have gone ashore who tried. [According to 
the accounts of the natives ashore who watched the ship, they could 
see her ropes with their bare eyes. She was probably from three to five 
miles from land and was nearly stationary for several days.] 

About October 4th or 5th a southeast wind gradually freshened to a 
gale and we started drifting northwest. We continued on that line 
through October, the water deepening until the sounding machine 
showed 900 and 1,000 fathoms. During this month the Captain had 
some drag-nets set up and he also made several himself for Mr. Murray. 
These drags were continually on the bottom until the ship was crushed. 
The nets were hauled up at noon and emptied and reset. Murray got 
what he called "lots of interesting specimens " Several times during 
October the ice cracked in such a way that we had open water close 
to the ship. It was within fifty yards at one time. During October 
and November the natives killed between forty and fifty seals, one 
small bear and five foxes. Early in November easterly winds blew and 
set us to the south and southwest' until about the 20th of December, 
when we finally landed up against the Siberian shore ice. 

During the month of November the Captain had all the deck-load 
of kerosene and lumber placed on the ice and also all the hard bread, 
rice, beef, pork, the sleds and canoes. The crew removed the wooden 
cases from the pemmican and sewed it up in drill to lighten the loads 
in case of emergency. The Captain put me to work at making two 
canoe sleds [for hauling the Eskimo-type skin boats or umiaks]. Ac- 
cording to his directions, I made also three sleds of the type used by 
Peary. Two of these sleds were eventually used for going ashore in 
Wrangel Island and one was used by the Captain for his Siberian 
trip. 

During the drift the scientific staff were engaged in their various 
occupations. Murray and Beuchat were writing continually, the Doc- 
tor was making up clothes from Burberry for all the staff, and Mc- 
Kinlay was engaged in meteorology. Malloch had a theodolite set up 
on the ice and every night when the sky was clear he would be on the 
"ce taking sights and keeping the ship's position well in hand. 

About the beginning of December the Captain had the fires drawn 
and the engines cleaned up. That done, the engineers made ice picks 
and cooking pots. There were a lot of new aluminum cooking pots of 
all sizes in the outfit of the ship but the Captain considered them un- 
suitable, preferring cooking pots made by cutting in half a five-gallon 
Standard Oil kerosene tin and having a tin lid made to fit. These 



706 APPENDIX 

were said to be exactly like the tin pots used on the North Pole expe- 
dition by Peary. Boxes were made for the primus stoves, the ammuni- 
tion was done up in packages of three hundred rounds each, one package 
for each rifle, and the men were issued deerskins, which they were told 
to tan and make into clothes for themselves. They knew nothing about 
working deerskins and you should have seen the clothes they made. 
When they put them on, went out into the cold weather and stooped 
or did anything, split went their pants or shirt! In the meantime, the 
native woman was making deerskin boots for everybody. I think she 
made sixteen or eighteen pairs up to the time the ship was crushed. 

One night during the early part of December there was great excite- 
ment on board. The ice began to move and did considerable crushing. 
All hands turned out and got the dogs and sleds on board. But after 
an hour or two it quieted down again and at daylight we found we 
were in a big basin with ice crushed in ridges all around us. 

During this month there was considerable talk of Dr. Mackay, Mur- 
ray and Beuchat leaving the ship and making their way to St. Peters- 
burg. The Captain used to lie in his bunk nights and listen to them 
talking it over. The Doctor seemed to be the leader and was advising 
the rest to go as soon as possible. 

About the middle of December land was sighted to the southwest, 
a long ridge of mountain tops which later proved to be Wrangel Island. 
Herald Island was on the same line and at our distance (between fifty 
and seventy-five miles, I should judge) we were unable to distinguish 
one from the other. From the 15th on to the time that the ship was 
crushed we were jammed up against the Siberian shore ice, but as the 
wind was continuously from the north to east, we were slowly grinding 
along to the west. Every few days we would have a scare; the ice 
around the ship would split for a few feet and open up a little so the 
ship would groan, and then it was all quiet for days. 

During all this time the two natives and myself were sealing in 
the cracks which had opened. We got between forty and fifty seals, 
so we were well supplied with fresh meat. When we left the place 
where the ship was crushed we still had twenty seals left. 

There was nothing of a stirring nature as the days went by. We 
could still see the mountains every clear day. 

The evening of January 4th the ship cracked like a shot and brought 
everybody out on deck with a startled look. We found the ice had 
split with a narrow crack from the ship's stem right out ahead. ■ When 
we returned to the cabin there was a great discussion started among the 
scientific staff. Each one had his theory about it but it seemed to be 
finally decided that the tides were at the bottom of the trouble. The 
Doctor asked me what I thought of it and I answered him that, as the 
wind was blowing pretty fresh from the north, I thought that might 
account for the pressure. Whenever there was pressure during our drift 
there was always a discussion about it. 



APPENDIX 707 

The Captain said: "Look out for next Saturday; the chances are 
that we will get a bad one on January 10th." The next Saturday 
about five A. M. all hands were awakened by a loud crashing and groan- 
ing of the ship and for a few minutes she was writhing in her ice 
dock as if her last hour had come. But after a while things quieted 
down. The Captain said, "Look out for this evening at the turn of 
the tide," and he made another good guess. It happened to be blowing 
rather strong from the north at this time and everybody was on the 
alert that evening. During the day the Captain had all the snow 
removed from the decks — an inch or two of snow — to lighten the ship. 
This was so she might rise more easily under pressure. There were a 
few other small things attended to for the safety of the crew. 

About seven P. M. we got a strong squeezing which seemed to lift 
the ship several inches. Fifteen minutes later there was a loud crack- 
ing of timbers, the ship heeled to starboard several degrees, and water 
commenced to pour into the engine room. A few minutes later the 
Captain gave orders to abandon the ship. 

The only food that was taken out of the ship at this time was 
all the Hudson's Bay and Underwood pemmican. The Captain ordered 
the Danish and Norwegian pemmican to be left in the ship. He de- 
tailed me to look out for all the bags of clothing that were in Mr. 
Stefansson's cabin, and also the rifles, ammunition, etc. I told the 
Captain I would like to have a shotgun ashore in Wrangel Island, but 
he said that explorers did not use shotguns. I told him we were not 
going ashore to explore but to live and that I knew of a crowbill rookery 
on Wrangel Island. If we were planning to live there during the 
summer I thought a shotgun would be more use there than a rifle. So 
it was finally decided we would take a twelve-gauge shotgun, but the 
ammunition that was passed out of the ship with this shotgun was 
all sixteen-gauge loaded shells and the mistake was not discovered until 
too late. 

After the pemmican and other stufl was on the ice, the Captain 
ordered me to take the two Eskimos and build two large houses. The 
walls were made of boxes of bread and sacks of coal reinforced with 
snow and covered with the ship's sail that had been placed on the ice 
several weeks before. We lived in those houses very comfortably until 
the camp was deserted several weeks later. 

During this time a blizzard was blowing from the north. As fast 
as anything was placed on the ice it was covered with the drifting 
snow. I put an extra case of .30-30 ammunition on the ice, as the two 
natives had each a .30-30 rifle. Later these cases of ammunition could 
not be found, nor yet a case of 6^/^ mm. [Mannlicher] ammunition. 

There was plenty of time to save everything we wanted from the 
ship, for she was held tight in the ice all that night and the next day 
until three-thirty P. M. During the last several hours no one went 
aboard except the Captain. A few minutes after three-thirty P. M., 



708 APPENDIX 

the ship began to go down by the head until she was almost perpendicu- 
lar. Then she suddenly straightened out on a level keel and slowly 
sank with the Union Jack flying. The depth of water was thirty 
fathoms. 

For several days after this all hands were engaged getting ready for 
the trip ashore, fixing up boots and socks and sleeping gear, making 
these the best they could out of deerskins. There were three sleeping- 
bags for the Doctor, Murray and Beuchat. The rest of us had drilling 
bags with one small fawn skin to wrap around our feet. I found this 
fairly warm. About the middle of January the Cdptain sent three 
sled-loads of provisions and all the dogs (over twenty) with the first 
and second officers and two sailors with orders to go to Wrangel Island 
and form a base and build a house to be ready for the ship's company 
whenever they should arrive. [The party consisted of First Mate 
Anderson, Second Mate Barker and the Sailors King and Brady.] 
Mamen and the two Eskimos were to return to "Shipwreck Camp" with 
the teams after the Mate's party reached the land. When the sleds 
started the crew went with them for a mile to help them over some 
rough ice and then we returned. 

During that day poor Malloch froze his legs. He was wearing a 
pair of bearskin breeches which came just to his knees and were as 
stiff as a board. There were about three inches bare between the top 
of his boots and the bottom of his trousers. I told him before we 
started, "You are going to freeze your legs, Malloch, if you don't wrap 
them up." But Malloch said that that was the way the Captain had 
told them they dressed in Greenland, so I said, "Go to it, old man." 
When he returned he was so badly frozen that he was laid up for sev- 
eral days. 

I think it was sixteen or seventeen days before the teams returned. 
During that interval the Captain had a line of depots made at dis- 
tances of one, two, three and four days' travel from Shipwreck Camp. 
These contained food and oil. He asked me what I thought of his doing 
this and I told him we would never find them, or at least the chances 
were we wouldn't, as the ice was on the move all the time. He had 
the teams make the trips just as far as they could travel in one day 
and return the next. 

I forget who went on the first trip but on the second one were 
Malloch and Munro and they had a mishap. It was before they had 
cached their loads. They started across a patch of young ice and got 
about ten feet from the strong ice when their sled broke through and 
what they didn't lose they got wet, with themselves in the bargain. 
So they dumped their load and started back to Shipwreck Camp, but 
night overtook them before they reached it, as they were about thirty 
or forty miles away when they broke through. When they camped, they 
had a very pleasant night of it by their own account. I forget whether 
they lost their primus stove or not, but if they didn't it would not 



APPENDIX 709 

burn, as everything was frozen up. They had to stand up all night 
and move around to keep from freezing, waiting for daylight, which 
in the early part of January was quite a long wait. The next day 
they got to us more dead than alive. I forget who it was made the 
next trip — the last. I was busy finishing the Peary-type sleds, so I 
made no trips. 

Every night during the time the sleds were away we had a grand 
illumination to show the way to Shipwreck Camp. But of course no- 
body ever arrived at night, for it was simply impossible to travel over 
that ice when it was so dark you could cut it. Furthermore, it was 
too dangerous. During all these bonfires we burned the Peterborough 
canoes, the whale boats and most of the drums of oil and gasoline, and 
the case oil [kerosene in cases] besides. It is a wonder we didn't 
blow ourselves to eternity. I reminded the Captain of how he had 
burnt all the hair off his face last winter when he put a package of 
Eastman's flash papers in the cabin stoves, and I advised him to look 
out that nothing worse happened. 

I think it was February 4th or 5th that we heard dogs howling 
several miles from camp. Some of the men went out to look and 
shortly after the sleds returned to camp with the news that they had 
left the Mate's party on the ipe about three miles from Herald Island 
with a lead of open water (three miles wide) between them and the 
land. They had one sled, three sled-loads of provisions and no dogs. 
" The feet of one of the four were badly frozen already. I thought 
this a bad position for the Mate's party to be in, for if the ice started 
to crush, which in all probability it would do, it was all off with his 
outfit. They might save themselves but they wouldn't save much of 
their gear. I had advised the Mate before he started that if they 
wanted to leave him with water between him and the land, and no 
dogs, if I were in his place I would refuse to stay and would return 
with the dogs to Shipwreck Camp. He said at the time he would do 
so. I was told now that when Mamen was about to turn back with the 
dogs the Mate wanted to come with him but gave it up because one 
of the sailors made fun of him, saying, "Give me a rifle and I will 
walk to Point Barrow." The Mate then said he didn't like to have it 
told that he was the first to retreat. Poor fellow, it would have been 
better if he had done so. 

There was great excitement in camp that evening. The Doctor's 
party were planning to start out on their own account and were anxious 
to get news from Mamen's party. Some said that if the Doctor wanted 
to leave the rest he had better act on his own ideas and that we should 
not give him any information. I did not agree with this, for it seemed 
to me that if no steps were taken to prevent him from going, it was 
not fair to withhold information which might help his party on the 
road. The next day the Doctor's party got ready and packed their 
sled with fifty days' rations for four men. The Captain told them they 



710 APPENDIX 

could have anything they wanted. When the Doctor asked for dogs, 
the Captain said: "Not one dog; if you go off and leave us you play 
dog yourself." 

That evening Murray sent for me, asking me what I thought of the 
prospects of their party reaching land. I told him I did not think 
there was anything wrong with it. The land was in plain sight and 
I thought it could be easily made. In their case it would not be so 
easy, however, for they had no dogs and when they stopped pulling 
the sled would stop. In our case it would be different. When we 
came to a smooth place we could let up and the dogs would pull the 
load along. I thought it would be a good idea if they waited for us 
and we all went together, for the plan was that just as soon as the 
sleds returned from their next trip we would all go. But they said 
they didn't want to wait. Just before I got up to leave, Murray asked 
me to go with them. I told him I was sorry but I would wait for the 
rest and would go when the Captain was ready to start us off. I thought 
they were very foolish if they did not do the same, for we could help 
one another if we got into difficulties. He objected that our plan was 
different from theirs. We were going to spend the rest of the winter 
and spring on Wrangel Island but they wanted to continue to the 
mainland, and were going to try to go straight through to St. Peters- 
burg. So I wished him luck. Next morning at break of day they 
started. 

I think it was the third morning after this that the Captain sent 
two or three sleds with loads of provisions to Herald Island with the 
intention to join the Mate's party. What the orders were I don't know 
except that they were to go to the Mate's party and return as soon 
as possible. The party was in charge of Mamen, with a support party 
to help them off a few miles. Before dark they returned with the news 
that Chafe, the cabin boy, had taken Mamen's place and Mamen was 
returning, for he had sprained his knee. Shortly after this Mamen 
hobbled up to camp with two men assisting him. He was laid up for 
several days. 

It was about the 10th of February the sleds returned with the news 
that when they arrived at Herald Island they found the ice had done 
considerable crushing. They could discover no sign of the Mate's 
party. They seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. The 
search party camped about three miles from Herald Island, for they 
could not get ashore because of water and slush ice. Next day they 
hunted for signs of the Mate's party but found none. During the next 
night the ice commenced working. The piece they were camped on was 
a small, solid cake, but the next morning at daylight they found they 
were adrift with water all around them, going to the west at a mile 
or two an hour. [Some similar thing had probably happened to the 
Mate's party.] After drifting a few hours, their cake touched the pack 
and they were able to get off. One of their sleds collapsed, so they 



APPENDIX 711 

cached their load and returned to Shipwreck Camp. On the return 
trip they met the Doctor's party and found them in pretty bad shape. 
The sailor, Morris, had blood poisoning in one of his hands and poor 
Beuchat had frozen both feet from the ankles down and both hands 
from the wrists solid. He couldn't get his boots and stockings on or 
his mittens, and he was in a very pitiable plight. The most cheerful 
one seemed to be Murray. The Doctor appeared all in. They were 
double tripping their stuff and Beuchat remained at the camp to look 
out for their things. Chafe wanted him to return to Shipwreck Camp 
but Beuchat would not. He knew we could not do anything for him 
there. We did not even have any medicine, for when the ship was 
crushed no medical supplies were taken off except a small traveling 
medical chest brought off by the chief engineer. The Doctor's party 
was never seen or heard of again, nor any trace of them found. 

That evening the Captain informed me that on the 12th of the 
month I would leave with the two engineers, two firemen, Malloch, 
Chafe and one sailor. We would have two sleds and would go to 
Wrangel Island. The chief engineer was in command. The Captain 
told me he would not put me in charge as the Government wouldn't 
stand for it, as I was inferior in rank to the engineer. But I was 
to advise the engineer what to do. 

The next day we got everything ready. We had a lot of collapsible 
iron stoves for burning driftwood and I wanted to take two of them 
along to Wrangel Island so we could use wood for fuel. They weighed 
only a few pounds. The Captain did not approve of this, however, 
and gave us orders to burn kerosene instead of driftwood. We started 
with a light load and we were to replenish our loads as we went along 
from the depots which had been made at the Captain's orders at 
various intervals towards land. I should judge we had nine hundred 
pounds to a sled and five dogs. We had one Mannlicher rifle for each 
sled and three hundred rounds of ammunition for each rifle. We also 
had one .22 caliber rifle with five hundred rounds. 

About nine o'clock February 12th the chief engineer's party started 
from Shipwreck Camp towards shore with me in it. We tried to 
follow the old trail made by the sledges when they were carrying out 
the supplies which had been cached in several depots at varying dis- 
tances from Shipwreck Camp along a line running towards shore. We 
found the trail broken by ice movement and difficult or impossible to 
follow. In some places we would come to where the trail ended 
abruptly along a line of ice movement and after long search we might 
find it two or three miles to one side or the other. Usually it was found 
to the left, for the farther away from Wrangel Island the ice was the 
faster it was drifting to the west. Our progress was pretty slow, for 
in addition to searching for the trail we had to chop a road through 
pressure ridges frequently with the pickaxes. Our reason for trying 
to follow the old trail was to see if we could find any of the depots. 



712 APPENDIX 

When we arrived in a locality where we thought one of the depots 
ought to be, we stopped for several hours or perhaps over-night to 
make a search. I did not expect to find any of them but we did find 
one which by good luck was in the middle of an old ice floe that had 
escaped crushing. 

The second morning out I shot a small bear but the rest of the 
boys would not eat it as they weren't hungry enough yet, so I fed it 
to the dogs. This was better for them than the one-pound pemmican 
ration. 

The morning when we left camp the wind was freshening from the 
northeast. It gradually increased to a blizzard and kept up for five 
or six days. In the morning of the sixth day we arrived at the 
pressed-up ice where the edge of the landfast floe meets the moving 
pack. This proved to be about forty miles from Wrangel Island. The 
ice was crushing and tumbling so that we just had to wait for it to 
stop. I picked out what I thought was a good cake for camping. I 
then went to have a better look at the ridge and found the ice in a 
frightful condition. I got on top of a small pinnacle which was not 
moving just then and found the ridge extended about three and a half 
miles through such ice as I had never before seen in my twenty-five 
years' living in this country. Nothing could be done till the crushing 
stopped. I had grave fears for the Doctor's and the Mate's parties if 
they got caught in this. 

We camped and waited for the ice to stop crushing. That evening 
about eight o'clock we were all in our blankets and I was listening to 
the ice groaning and vibrating when, snap ! the ice cracked right across 
the floor of the house. We tumbled out as quickly as we could, packed 
the gear on the sled, hitched up the dogs and got everything ready for 
retreat. I found we were surrounded by lanes of water, but, as we were 
two or three miles from the ridge, I thought we wouldn't do anything 
until daylight unless we had to because it was so dark you could cut it 
and it was impossible to see where you were going. So we walked 
around to keep ourselves warm until daylight. When it was light 
enough we started to climb back. Then the ice began to get its work 
in, splitting and opening up in all directions. But there was no 
crushing where we were. About 4 P. M. we managed to get back to 
the solid pack and picked a place to camp. 

Next morning I heard more crushing. We again packed up. We 
moved southeast a few miles and then south and camped about two 
miles from the ridge. The Chief and I walked down to have a look 
at it and found it still crushing a bit, so we concluded to wait another 
day. We knew the Captain's gang would be along shortly. All hands 
could then pitch in and cut our way through, for we knew the ridge 
was solidly grounded on the sea bottom and once inside it we would be 
safe. It certainly was there to stay till summer. It seemed to me 
this would have been a good place to stop and make several trips back 




This Lead Had Frozen Over. 



APPENDIX 713 

to Shipwreck Camp to get all the food we needed and take it ashore 
at our leisure. When on our way back from this inspection we saw the 
Captain coming from the north. I walked ahead to meet him and tell 
how things were going. After his party had camped we walked back 
to the ridge to look at things, and concluded to start cutting a .road the 
next morning if the movement had stopped. 

Next morning all hands pitched in with everything they could 
work with. I now told the Captain I thought it would be a good idea 
to send a couple of sleds back to Shipwreck Camp and rush some grub 
over the ridge and we could return from the beach and get it at any 
time. The Captain did not see it that way. He said he didn't want to 
waste any time as he wanted to get away from Wrangel Island as soon 
as possible and that we could later make a trip from the beach back 
to Shipwreck Camp. I could not understand this, for his plan was 
that we should live in Wrangel Island on pemmican and we did not 
have .rations of a pound of pemmican a day for more than a month. 
Two or three hours later he changed his mind, came to me and told 
me to quit work and get ready to go back to Shipwreck Camp in the 
morning with Chafe and McKinlay and three dog teams to bring three 
cases of gasoline, sixteen hundred pounds of pemmican and nothing else. 

We started next marning and arrived at Shipwreck Camp at 6 P. M. 
I should judge it was forty miles. Next day we loaded the sleds 
and fed the dogs all the Hudson's Bay pemmican they could eat. They 
had been working on a pound a day of Underwood pemmican, which 
was a starvation ration, and they were now nothing but a frame of 
bones, poor things. We loaded the sleds with Hudson's Bay pemmican, 
as everybody but the Captain liked that the best, and next morning 
we started on the return journey. The dogs were pretty weak with 
their previous starvation, so we later had to throw away about one 
hundred pounds from each load, and we traveled pretty slow at that. 
It took us three days to cover on the .return journey what we had 
made in one day coming out. 

On the second day about three P. M. I was behind the team when 
my dogs stopped, turned in their tracks, and commenced growling, their 
hair standing up stiff. I looked behind me and there was a bear about 
six feet from the sled. If the dogs hadn't smelt it I should never 
have known what hit me, I guess. They made a break for him and 
he backed off a few feet, giving me a chance to get my gun and give 
it to him in the head. We found him about ten feet from tip to tip, 
with three inches of blubber. We made camp, for it was getting 
dusk. 

While I was tinkering at the camp and the other boys were cooking 
tea the dogs commenced a racket. I looked up and there was a big 
bear alongside the sled between me and it, sitting on his haunches and 
making passes at the dogs, trying to hit them. I ran around the sled 
and got my rifle, which was about four feet from the bear. We were 



714 APPENDIX 

not needing any bear meat, so I tried to scare him off, but tie was 
too scared of the dogs to pay any attention to me. As I did not want 
him to kill any of the dogs I finally had to shoot him. As I shot I 
heard another growling match and another bear piled over a small ridge 
that was about ten feet from the sled. He had blood in his eye and 
went for the dogs as if bent on murder. I had to kill him, which closed 
a pretty good day so far as bears and dog feed were concerned. 

Next morning I opened up the bears to let the gas escape, expecting 
the Captain would send back for the meat for dog feed. About noon 
as we were drawing near the ,ridge, two men came running to meet 
us. They were the Chief and one of the sailors, who helped us over 
the ridge to camp. After I told my story to the Captain he said, 
"All right, to-morrow morning you will go back to the bea,rs and bring 
two loads of meat." I suggested going to Shipwreck Camp and bring- 
ing two sled-loads of hard bread and rice, which would last us along with 
the pemmican until it was time for ships to come in the summer, but 
he did not approve of this. He said the Chief would make a trip out 
to the ship when we got ashore. "Yes," I said, "that would be all, right 
providing we don't have a south wind in the meantime." 

The next morning Kurraluk, McKinlay, Mamen and I went back 
for bear meat while the rest were double-tripping stuff towards the 
beach. We arrived there the 12th of March, having had a fairly good 
road the forty miles from the ridge. There was plenty of driftwood, 
which was a godsend to us though it would have been worth a great 
deal more had we had our sheet-iron stoves. From this time and 
right through the summer we had a lot of trouble with our cooking 
gear. The aluminum pots which we threw away on leaving the Karluk 
would have been good as new after ten years of use, but our pots 
which the engineers had made to replace them out of kerosene tins had 
holes in them before the Captain left. The tin was fragile, the solder- 
ing was bad, and between use and rust they were soon in pretty bad 
condition. [Bartlett mentions the giving out of the tins used for 
cooking, on page 172 of "The Last Voyage of the Karluk."] 

The next morning the Captain sent one of the Eskimos and me out to 
look for the Mate's and the Doctor's parties but no sled tracks or other 
signs were to be found. Big fires were made with wet driftwood to 
cause smoke which they could see a long way if they were there to 
see it. Arrangements were made that the Chief should first make a 
round trip to Shipwreck Camp and then go to Herald Island to look 
for traces of the lost men. The morning of the 17th the Chief left 
with two teams, a sailor and a fireman, for Shipwreck Camp, while the 
Captain and one of the natives got ready for their trip to East Cape. 
They started the next morning with fifty days' rations for the men 
and thirty days' for the dogs. 

Malloch wanted to go with the Captain but he wouldn't take him, 
saying he couldn't stand the trip. This broke poor old Malloch all up. 



APPENDIX 715 

But I think the Captain was right in that case. He could not stand 
the trip, for his feet had been pretty badly frozen on the way in from 
Shipwreck. When he went to Kodgers Harbor, which he did the day 
after the Captain left, he froze them badly again. He did not under- 
stand how to look after himself. Here is an instance of it : One morn- 
ing during our trip in while we were breaking camp, I noticed Malloch 
standing still in one position for twenty minutes or half an hour. I 
asked him, "What's the matter, Malloch, are you sick or what?" He 
replied: "Sick, no. The matter is I'm standing here because the Cap- 
tain told me when I come out of the camp in the morning to stand still 
until my boots are frozen hard and then they would be all right for the 
day." I asked him how his feet were right now and he said they were 
pretty cold. I told him he had better get a move on or he would 
have no feet to get cold. He was the only one of the whole party 
to freeze his feet on the trip in. 

The night of the 18th the Chief returned to us with the news that 
there was an ocean of young ice between the ridge and the pack. There 
was no use trying now to reach Shipwreck Camp but he would go out 
and try again in a few days. In the meantime he and McKinlay would 
make their trip to Herald Island. They were gone five days and said 
when they came back that nothing could be seen of the lost men. 
About the first or second of April the Chief made a second start for 
Shipwreck Camp, accompanied by the same men and Chafe in addition. 

Shortly after the Captain left, Mamen, Malloch and the steward went 
to Rodgers Harbor to live through the summer. McKinlay was to join 
them after he got back from Herald Island. The native went along to 
help them but was to return to us after he had assisted them in making 
a camp. All this was according to the Captain's instructions. About 
the end of March the native returned having done these things. On the 
way back he kiUed a female bear and two cubs. 

Five or six days after the Chiefs party left, the native and I saw 
them in a mirage wandering about as if lost. On the ninth day the 
Chief and Williamson, the sailor, returned, saying that Chafe was lost 
on the ice. Williamson's feet were badly frozen and the Chief's wrists 
slightly. They b-rought the glad tidings that they had lost everything 
they started with, dogs, sleds, personal effects, guns and ammunition. 
I found out now that they had taken a large quantity of ammunition 
with them. I never knew why. I had two pairs of fur socks, boots 
and shirts that I had brought aboard with me from Point Barrow. I 
gave the Chief one each of these and one pair of deerskin mittens, 
whereupon he said he would return to the ridge and see if he could 
find Chafe. He left with a small sled the Eskimo had made for him 
and a little tea and pemmican but he returned the next day without 
finding Chafe. 

This left us in a pretty tight fix, losing the guns and ammunition, 
and we didn't know what to think of Chafe. But that night he came 



716 APPENDIX 

in to camp, pretty well all in, with three dogs fastened to him that 
were pulling him along. He told this version of the accident: 

His team had been ahead when they struck some young ice just out- 
side the ridge. The Chief had wanted to cross the young ice in a direct 
line but Chafe had tried it, found it not strong enough, and had gone 
around by another way where it was stronger. The Chief tried to go 
direct, his sled broke through the ice, and he and the sailor fell in the 
water as well, getting their feet and hands wet. They were able to 
climb on the ice but left the sled and dogs to sink where they were. 
No move was made to save the rifles and cartridges. Meantime the 
plunging of the dogs and the working of the sled had smashed up the 
only way open for Chafe's return. At this stage the Chief and sailor 
had gone back, leaving Chafe on the other side of the open water. 
When Chafe finally got back on the landfast ice at the end of the 
trail which led ashore, he stayed there one night. He then came ashore 
with the three dogs, thinking the others would follow. 

During the absence of the Chief, the Eskimo and I got two more 
bears and a small cub. These were the last bears we got on Wrangel 
Island. The meat was divided up, so much for each camp according 
to the numbers. 

As there did not seem to be much game near the shore, the Eskimo 
and I went out to the ridge and made camp with a tent that we found 
there on the sled Chafe had abandoned. [Apparently the rest of Chafe's 
dogs were lost, as Hadley does not mention them.] Next morning 
bright and early we went out to the open water about three miles 
beyond the ridge and got five seals. For two or three days after that 
the sealing conditions were bad, so the native decided to go ashore 
with two seals and bring back a load of driftwood to burn. He took 
the sled we had come with and two dogs, leaving one with me to give 
me warning in case of the arrival of a bear. He intended to be back 
in four days. 

That night I slept in my sleeping-bag and the dog was fastened 
to the sled just outside the door. About four A. M. I was awakened 
by his barking, and that meant a bear. I tried to get out of my white 
drilling sleeping-sack but the more I struggled the harder I stuck. 
Finally, when I got out to my gun I saw the bear and two small cubs 
disappearing over a ridge. I swore, "No more sleeping-bags for me," 
and for about ten days I slept on top of the bag, but no bears. Then 
one night it felt pretty cold and there being no bears, I got into the 
sleeping-bag. Of course, the same thing happened, even to the hour 
of four A. M. I finally freed myself from the bag in time to get one 
shot in as the bear was disappearing over a ridge. I then cut the dog 
loose to see if we could get the bear that way. It had been snowing 
and was pretty dark and both the dog and I had several hard falls. 
The rough going did not seem to bother the bear and he got away. 

The native had now been away twice as long as he said but I decided 



APPENDIX 717 

to give him four or five more days. It was blowing hard from the 
south, and I knew that when the wind dropped there would be open 
water outside the ridge, with plenty of seals. But I was beginning 
to worry about the native, so I set out on the fourteenth day. I got 
to the beach at seven A. M. and found everybody asleep. It seemed the 
native had loaded up with wood as he had said he would and had 
started for my camp when he got severely snowblind five or six miles 
from land and was unable to proceed. After being sick there for some 
time he had returned ashore. Shortly after this McKinlay left for his 
camp at Rodgers Harbor, where he was to stay according to the Captain's 
orders. He was gone several days and came back with the news that 
Malloch had died and that Mamen was sick and swelling up, which 
most of them were doing at our camp, too. He said Mamen could not 
eat the Underwood pemmican and had asked him to go to Skeleton 
Island, some twenty or thirty miles from our camp, to get him a tin 
of Hudson's Bay pemmican. McKinlay had tried to do this and had 
got lost to the extent of not finding Skeleton Island, whereupon he had 
continued along the land until he came to our camp. He was snowblind 
and played out, so he got the Chief and one of the firemen to return to 
Rodgers Harbor to look after Mamen, as Templeman (the steward) 
was unable to do it. 

From now on the seals began to come out of their holes to sun them- 
selves on the ice and the native and I occasionally got one, which was 
a change from the pemmican. Birds would fly over us in flocks but 
we rarely got one of them on the wing with our rifles. It was then 
we felt not having the shotgun. 

The second of June McKinlay, the Eskimo family and I left for 
Cape Waring where I knew of a crowbill rookery. McKinlay was to 
take back the sleds and team of three dogs to fetch the rest, who were 
all sick. Before we arrived at Cape Waring we were met by the Chief 
and the firemen from Eodgers Harbor with the news that when they 
arrived Mamen had been dead and the steward nearly out of his head 
with the two dead men beside him in the tent. They had come back 
to get their effects and return to the harbor. 

Thus far we have kept to Hadley's account except for the matter en- 
closed in brackets. It is verbatim except where it has been necessary 
to draw together in one place for the sake of clearness information 
scattered over several paragraphs. A few sentences have been supplied 
for full clearness, but only according to Hadley^s verbal statements 
to me. '"^' 

It is now necessary to summarize what he says in various parts of 
his report and what he told verbally to bring out the cause of death 
of the men, for he does not express himself to make the meaning clear 
to any except those of us who are familiar with the circumstances. 

The trouble appears to have been largely with the pemmican. We 



718 APPENDIX 

have told in otlier parts of this book how unsatisfactory we found it 
both for man and dog feed because of the large amount of salt, the lack 
of fat, and the high proportion of water. One pound of pemmican, if 
approximately haK is fat and half lean meat thoroughly desiccated, 
gives a ration sufficient for a small dog of the Greenland type. It is 
well known that the caloric value of fat per pound is more than double 
that of any other food element. If a pound of pemmican which is half 
fat is considered barely sufficient for a dog, it becomes clear that a 
pound of pemmican nearly devoid of fat must be insufficient. On 
other branches of the expedition we managed to use the pemmican by 
feeding it half and half with blubber, which made it a satisfactory 
ration except for the saltiness and the water. But on the way ashore 
to Wrangel Island the dogs had been fed with only a pound of pemmi- 
can and no fat, except for brief intervals when they lived on bear meat. 
At these bear meat periods Hadley says they improved in strength and 
condition. 

The pemmican was not only insufficient as a ration but led to 
illness, both of men and dogs. This does not mean that there was any- 
thing poisonous about it. It is merely an illustration of the generally 
accepted fact that a diet consisting almost entirely of protein leads 
to "protein poisoning," which is poisoning only in the sense that illness 
results because the kidneys are overtaxed with trying to excrete the 
excess of nitrates. This leads to nephritis or derangement of the kid- 
neys, of which a common symptom is swelling of the body beginning 
usually at the ankles. Although he was not exposed to this diet as 
long as the rest, Bartlett developed these symptoms about the time he 
got ashore in Siberia, having lived mainly on protein from the time 
of leaving Shipwreck Camp till he got to the mainland where he was 
able to travel from house to house, living on ordinary groceries and 
native meats. 

Mj own party lived chiefly on protein for a few weeks the winter 
of 1909-1910. An account of this experience and the early stages of 
the sort of illness that is sure to develop is found in "My Life With 
the Eskimo," pages 140 3., with scattered references to the same subject 
elsewhere in that book. Having to live mainly on protein (lean meat) 
is an occasional experience of many Indian tribes in Canada and is 
referred to by them and the Hudson's Bay men as "starvation," no 
matter how much lean meat may be available. 

Hadley noted in Wrangel Island that the swelling and other 
symptoms of illness developed most rapidly with those men who ate the 
most pemmican, and in consequence the least seal or bear meat. The 
situation was not thoroughly understood at the time even by Hadley, 
and his own escape and that of the Eskimos was not due to a thorough 
understanding but merely to the general notion that fresh food was 
better than "canned stuff." Also it was a matter of taste. The Eski- 
mos and Hadley preferred the fresh meat, and McKinlay seems to 



APPENDIX 719 

have fallen into their tastes early, which kept him freer than any of 
the others from the symptoms of the disease — wholly free, I believe. 
Hadley and the Eskimos were entirely free of every symptom of ne- 
phritis. 

In closing this summary I must emphasize again that lean meat, 
whether classed as pemmican, tinned beef, or anything else, is not 
poisonous in itself and makes a suitable ingredient of a diet where 
carbohydrates or fats play a part. But the foods saved from the 
Karluh were pemmican, hard bread, tea, and tinned milk. The hard 
bread soon gave out, the milk was never intended as anything but a 
flavoring for the tea, and the tea itself was, of course, of no conse- 
quence as food. The men who became ill and died had lived, therefore, 
largely on the pemmican. Unfortunately it seems, too, that the preju- 
dice against "blubber^' prevented them from eating the fat that was 
available from the seals. Had they had bacon, butter, lard or some fat 
to which white men are accustomed, they would doubtless in merely 
following their tastes have eaten enough fat to protect them largely or 
wholly from nephritis. 

We found [Hadley continues] millions of ducks and gulls at Cape 
Waring. We immediately went to the rookery, a matter of three 
miles from camp, but there was not a crowbill in sight though there 
were plenty of gulls. I shot twelve gulls, one for each of the party, and 
then returned to camp where McKinlay was waiting for me to return 
with the team to fetch the sick. I put one gull for each of them on the 
sled and he started back. The native caught a seal during the day, 
which put us on Easy Street for the time. Next day McKinlay re- 
turned from our old camp with the rest and I thought a few days' 
feeding on ducks and duck soup would bring them around all right. 
They were swelling up more and more all the time. I put this down 
partly to the fact that they lay too much in their houses, never going 
out. When they made tea they would dig snow from the side of the 
house for the water. 

We got ducks and seals most every day and later three ugrugs 
(bearded seals) and one small walrus. Eventually I told the native to 
build a small umiak so that when the ice left the beach we could go 
after walrus, he and I. But he thought a kayak would be better so he 
built one, covering it with sealskins. Later we wished we had an 
umiak instead, for when we had nothing to do and could get no more 
ducks we could see walrus drifting by offshore by the hundreds sleep- 
ing on the ice cakes. The Eskimo was too scared to go after them in 
the kayak, for he was always used to hunting them from an umiak. 
With a boat there is no trouble about getting meat. We had not tried 
to save or bring ashore the big umiak on the Karluh. It was the 
intention to let her sink with the ship, but after the Karluh sank 
she was floating around in the water and I had got permission from 



720 APPENDIX 

the Captain to cut out of her a few pieces of leather for boot soles. 
These proved very useful later in Wrangel Island, but if we had brought 
with us the boat itself we would have had no trouble in killing walrus 
enough to support us for years on Wrangel Island. 

The morning of the 25th of May I was lying half awake when I 
heard a shot. I took no notice of it, for I thought it was Chafe 
shooting ducks. After a few seconds I heard the Second Engineer sing 
out, "Oh, call Mr. Hadley; Breddy has shot himself!" I was up in a 
flash and into the other tent, about ten yards off. As I got into the 
tent I asked, "What is the matter here?" The Second Engineer was 
sitting up and pointing at Breddy who was lying on his back with one 
arm stretched along his side and the other across his breast, with a 
bullet hole in his right eyelid. I picked up the gun the shooting had 
been done with and said, "Have you another gun in here ?" "Yes," was 
the answer. I said: "Give it to me and I will look after it. You 
don't need guns in here, anyway. You and Williamson are scarcely 
able to move." He gave me with the gun three cartridges, all that were 
left of one hundred that they had landed with from Shipwreck Camp, 
and not an animal killed with that gun. 

About this time I made a ladder from driftwood to get eggs from 
the cliff, but after I packed it over to the rookery I found it about 
twenty feet too short and could get only twenty-five eggs. Later I 
made another which was about the right length and McKinlay, the 
Eskimo and I took it over and tried to raise it, but it was too heavy 
for us and we had to abandon the idea. Tens of thousands of eggs and 
we could not get one of them ! I used the short ladder in every place 
that I could and got small lots of fifteen and twenty and twenty-five 
eggs. 

About the second of July there was a strong northwest wind which 
smashed and ground the ice in heavy ridges on the northwest side of 
the island, rolling it up against the cliffs seventy or eighty feet high. 
But July 3rd the wind turned to the southwest, blowing strong, and the 
ice went off from the beach, ending our sealing and duck shooting. 

The middle of August the ice came in again. All the bights were 
filled with loose ice which did not cement together for several days. 
This was a bad condition for any kind of hunting, so we went on a 
ration of two tablespoonfuls of fermented seal oil twice a day for 
three weeks. We had a little dried meat which we were saving for an 
emergency. After the ice got strong enough the native and I went off 
rustling and in the small holes we found lots of young crowbills with 
the old birds. The ammunition was getting low and we could not 
afford to shoot, so we got a net that we had been using for fish, though 
we never got any, and brought it out to use as a seine. The first cast 
we got about fifty birds and in all we got about five hundred, so our 
hungry days were temporarily over. 

Hadley here leaves out of his manuscript a part which he empha- 



APPENDIX 721 

sized v:^*feally. They were saving the dried meat whi<ih he mentions 
with the idea of using it when the ice was strong enough to allow them 
to cross to Siberia. Being familiar with this coast Hadley knew that if 
they once stepped on the mainland their troubles would be over, for 
there are dwellings of hospitable natives every few miles along that 
coast, and traveling along it you can easily sleep with one household, 
have lunch at noon with the second, and reach the third settlement by 
night. There seems no doubt that the healthy members of the party 
could have done this, but it is questionable how the invalids would have 
fared. Of course, they could have been cured by a month or two of 
fresh meat diet if fat had been used in reasonable proportions with the 
lean meat. It seems doubtful that this could now have been accom- 
plished, for the autumn is by no means so good a hunting time as the 
spring. There were now only a few men able to help themselves and 
to wait on the others. 

An important part of discipline that had not been enforced during 
the summer was the saving of ammunition. As mentioned incidentally 
in the narrative above, they used to fire with rifles at birds on the 
wing. Hadley's statement that they got some occasionally indicates 
that a great deal of ammunition must have been spent in this way. 
Much more ammunition was spent on small sea birds. Hadley esti- 
mated there were about two hundred rounds of ammunition left in the 
island early in September. It appears doubtful therefore that many 
would have lived through with health and strength sufficient to cross 
to the mainland. It can be said of most of the party, if not all, that 
their lives were saved by the King and Winge. 

The first part of September [Hadley continues] the ice was strong 
enough for us to go three miles from shore, where we saw several bear 
tracks and several seals but no walrus close enough to shoot. As the 
season was getting late and no ship had appeared, we thought we were 
in for another winter and would have to be careful of our cartridges. 
I had about forty-five and the native around fifty, so we decided we 
ought not to shoot anything but bears and walrus unless we were 
pinched. 

On the fifth of September we had a blizzard from the northwest 
which made snowdrifts ten feet high. The sixth the weather was fine 
and the Eskimo and I went out on the floe, as our ducks were getting 
low, and I was lucky enough to get two seals. When we came ashore 
in the evening we got the welcome news that the Eskimo woman had 
caught about fifty pounds of tomcod, the first we had seen, so we 
went to sleep quite happy with great expectations for the morrow. 

Next morning it was blowing fresh from the northwest with drifting 
snow. We fished for a while with poor luck and then all hands went 
back to the tent. About ten o'clock the Eskimo went outdoors. A 
few minutes afterwards he sang out, "I think I see a ship !" I jumped 



722 APPENDIX 

up and there, sure enough, was a schooner coming along the island 
about twelve miles off. I told the native to run out to the edge of the 
ice and attract their attention and he was off like the wind. Shortly 
afterwards she headed in for the floe where she finally tied up, and 
our troubles were over. A gang of men climbed over the bow and 
headed for the beach. 

It proved to be the King and Winge of Seattle, owned by Mr. 
Swenson, who was on board. They had along a moving picture man 
with his machine and he marshaled us up and down for about ten 
minutes, taking films of us. When that was finished we went on board 
where we had a bath, a suit of clothes throughout, and a good fiU of 
good grub. 

Then we started for Nome. We found the way pretty icy and when 
it got dark we had to tie up to a cake and wait for daylight. Next 
morning we continued on the same course and about ten A. M. we 
sighted the United States Coast Guard Bear. When she hove along- 
side she lowered a boat. Captain Bartlett came on board, heard the 
news and ordered us on board the Bear, where we were royally treated 
by Captain Cochrane and his officers. We continued on our way to 
Nome where we arrived September 13, 1914. 

(Signed) John Hadley. 



Up to this we have for the sake of the point of view followed 
Hadley's manuscript account. Hadley's story up to the separation from 
Captain Bartlett corresponds to Chapters 8-18 of Bartlett and Hale's 
"Last Voyage of the Karluk." At the landing on Wrangel Island 
eight men of the Karluk party were missing and probably lost. These 
were the Mate's party — First Mate Anderson, Second Mate Barker, 
and the sailors King and Brady; and the Doctor's party — Dr. Mackay, 
Murray, Beuchat and the sailor Morris. There were living and well, 
except for Malloch's slightly frozen feet, the following : Bartlett, Breddy, 
Chafe, Hadley, Malloch, Mamen, Maurer, McKinlay, Munro, Temple- 
man, Williams, Williamson, the Eskimos Kataktovik and Kurraluk, 
the latter's wife Keruk, and their two little daughters, Makperk and 
Helen. 

Practically Bartlett had before him now the choice of two courses. 
He might take the entire party directly ashore where, as he knew 
especially through Hadley, there is a continuous native population east- 
ward along the coast to Bering Straits. These people are well supplied 
with food, for not only have they the ordinary hunting resources but 
they have neighbors inland who own huge herds of domestic reindeer, 
and there are also some traders on the coast, both Eussian and American, 
from whom the natives purchase in the summer a certain amount of 
groceries for winter. There would be no problem when they once got 
ashore about traveling safely and comfortably eastward to the larger 



APPENDIX 723 

trading posts near Bering Straits. His chief argument against this 
course was Malloch's partial disability; Bartlett mentions also that 
Maurer had frozen his feet slightly and that Mamen still had some 
trouble with his sprained knee. Then there was the hope that some 
of the eight missing men might still be living and would possibly 
arrive at Wrangel Island, when it would be a good thing to have 
some one there to meet them. 

Apart from these considerations, it would have been easy to get 
ashore, for the distance from Wrangel Island to the mainland is only 
a hundred and ten miles. When a party can rely on food at the end of 
the journey they need not carry with them very much. According to 
Bartlett's estimate, they now had provisions for eighty days. They 
could have thrown away fifty days' provisions. The remaining thirty 
would not have overloaded them and, if it had, they could have thrown 
away half, going with fifteen days' food and making up the rest from 
the seals and polar bears that are numerous in this section. The 
dogs were not in good condition, but they could have been fattened on 
fresh meat for ten or fifteen days be^Pore starting, for the winter was still 
abundantly long. 

But the consideration of the possible arrival of the eight lost men 
who would find themselves in hard circumstances if the island were 
deserted, appears to have determined Bartlett to leave everybody behind 
on Wrangel Island except the one Eskimo, Kataktovik, whom he took 
as a companion. Before leaving, Bartlett issued the following letter 
of instructions: 

"Shore Camp, Icy Spit, Wrangel Island, 
"March 18, 1914. 
"My dear Mr. Munro: 

"I am leaving this morning with seven dogs, one sledge and Katak- 
tovik to get the news of our disaster before the authorities at Ottawa. 

"During my absence you will be in charge. 

"I have already allocated supplies to the different parties. Mc- 
Kinlay has four men, Hadley is with the Eskimo Kerdrillo [KurralukJ 
which makes four people, Mr. Williamson three men and yourself three 
men. 

"McKinlay kindly made out a list for me and I will ask him to 
give a copy to you when you get back from your trip to Shipwreck 
Camp. 

"You will make a trip to Herald Island to search for traces of 
Mate's party. On my way I will cover the coast as far as Rodgers 
Harbor. 

"The great thing of course is the procuring of game. In this 
Kerdrillo will be of great assistance. Let him have his dogs and the 
two others so he can cover a good deal of ground ; and our own parties, 
scatter them around so that they will be able to hunt and while away 



724 APPENDIX 

the time. Give each party enough dogs, if you can spare them so that 
they can better cover the ground. 

"As we talked about distributing supplies thatyou bring back; give 
each one their proportional share. As it stands now there are 80 days' 
pemmican and oil for each person. 

"Please do all you can to p-romote good feeling in camp. You 
will assemble at Rodgers Harbor about the middle of July where I 
hope to meet you with a ship. 

"Sincerely yours, 

"E. A. Bartlett, 

"Captain, 0. G. S." 

March 18th Bartlett and Kataktovik with seven dogs, one sledge, 
provisions for forty-eight days for themselves and thirty for the dogs, 
started for the mainland of Siberia. They followed the east and south 
coasts of Wrangel Island five days and then started from near the 
southwest corner of the island the hundred and ten-mile crossing to 
the mainland. On the way over they met the ordinary traveling con- 
ditions. There were seals in the leads and abundant traces of bears. 
The leads, however, caused some delay. Doubtless because they had 
land behind them as well as in front, they met no very wide leads 
such as are found north of Alaska, and were generally able to deal 
with the ones they met by traveling a few miles to one side, where 
the leads narrowed enough for a crossing. March 30th they saw the 
comparatively low land ahead and April 4th they reached the mainland 
of Siberia, twelve days after leaving Wrangel Island and seventeen 
from their separation from the main party. 

When they neared land Bartlett had some trouble with his Eskimo 
companion who, like every other Eskimo, feared the natives who were 
strangers to him. On the west coast of Alaska the Eskimos rather 
specialize in fearsome tales about the Siberians. There seem to have 
been some hostilities in the past but in the main these stories are 
founded merely on fear of the unknown. 

Immediately on landing they found the trail of a native sled that 
had recently passed and after a , few miles of traveling to the east 
they came to a house. Kataktovik was worried about what the people 
might do to them but they proved, in fact, exceedingly hospitable. 
From now on Bartlett was able to sleep in a native house at the end 
of each day's journey, and could secure food and even dogs by the 
way. Later he met white men who were equally hospitable. 

But as he progressed eastward he gradually developed an illness 
of the same general symptoms as that from which the men in Wrangel 
Island died — swelling of the legs, weakness, disinclination to exercise. 
In going to Emma Harbor he was forced to discontinue his journey 
through the increase of the illness. Though he would have preferred 
to continue to Anadyr for the sake of trying to send out a wireless 



APPENDIX 725 

message lie was forced to accept the hospitality of Mr. Caraieff, a 
Russian trader of Emma Harbor. A few days later there arrived Baron 
Kleist, the Russian supervisor of northeastern Siberia. The Baron 
entertained the Captain royally and under careful treatment he re- 
covered. But the recovery was not complete until after he had received 
medical attention at St. Michael's, Alaska. 

Captain Bartlett traveled as the Baron's guest from Emma Harbor 
to Indian Point, where he was picked up by Captain Pedersen of the 
whaler Herman and carried across to St. Michael's, from which he sent 
the following message to the Government at Ottawa: 

"St. Michael's, Alaska, 
"May 29, 1914. 
"Naval Service, Ottawa, Canada. 

"Karluh ice pressure sank January eleventh, sixty miles north Herald 
Island. Preparations made last fall leave ship therefore comfortable 
on ice. January twenty-first sent first and second mate two sailors 
with supporting party three months provisions Wrangel Island. Sup- 
porting party returned leaving them close Herald Island. They ex- 
pected land island when ice moved inshore. Eebruary fifth Mackay, 
Murray, Beuchat, Sailor Morris left us using man power pull sledges. 
Sent again Herald Island three sledges, twenty dogs, pemmican, biscuit, 
oil. Open water prevented their landing. Saw no signs of men, pre- 
sumed they gone Wrangel. Returning left provisions along trail. 
Shortly after their return east gale sent us west. February twenty- 
fourth I left camp. March twelfth landed Munro, Williamson, Malloch, 
McKinlay, Mamen, Hadley, Chafe, Templeman, Maurer, Breddy, Wil- 
liams, Eskimo family Wrangel eighty-six days' supplies each man. 

"March seventeenth Munro two men fourteen dogs left for supplies 
Shipwreck Camp. Plenty of driftwood game island. March eighteenth 
I left island Eskimo landed Siberia fifty miles west Cape North. May 
twenty-first Captain Pedersen whaler Herman called for me Emma 
Harbor going out of his way whaling to do so. Soundings meteorologi- 
cal observations dredging kept up continually. Successful. Twelve 
hundred fathoms animal life found bottom. 

"Bartlett, Captain, C. G. S." 

The Captain's plea for help on behalf of the men at Wrangel Island 
met sympathetic attention everywhere. Two countries were especially 
well placed for offering help in the work of rescue, the United States 
and Russia- The American Government gave orders to Captain Coch- 
rane of the Bear (not the Polar Bear) to endeavor to rescue the Karluh 
crew, and similar orders were given by the Russian Government to the 
ice breakers Taimyr and Vaigatch. The stout old Bear is a good ice 
ship and with a creditable record of service from the time she and the 
Thetis rescued the Greely survivors from Cape Sabine. Since then she 



726 APPENDIX 

had rendered valuable assistance to many a whaler and trader when 
in difficulties with the ice. But the Taimyr and Vaigatch were more 
modern and powerful ships. Their commanders had just made the 
northeast passage around Asia, discovering Emperor Nicholas Second 
Land on the way. They were already familiar with the waters towards 
Wrangel Island and it appeared that they would have the best chance 
of making a rescue. 

But ice conditions proved especially difficult. The Russian ice 
breakers had been in sight of Wrangel Island but had been unable 
to get within ten miles of the coast when suddenly the wireless brought 
them the news of war and orders to return for active duty. This left 
the Bear alone, so far as government vessels were concerned. Before 
attempting to reach Wrangel Island she had to go to Point Barrow. 
Here Captain Bartlett met McConnell and heard from him what had 
happened to us after our separation from the Karluk about eleven 
months before. 

August 23rd the Bear started for Herald Island. She found ice 
conditions difficult, however, and when some fifteen miles from the 
island she was forced to turn back through fogs, thickness of the ice, 
and lack of coal. This was a hard experience for Captain Bartlett, 
although the miscarriage was probably felt as keenly by the captain 
and officers of the Bear, who were interested heart and soul in the 
rescue. 

When the Bear got back to Nome August 30th public feeling was 
deeply stirred, for it was now realized that unless the men on Wrangel 
Island could look after themselves, which did not seem likely to most 
Alaskans, there might soon be a tragedy. With most Alaskans to think 
is to act and their generosity knows no stint. Of no one is this more 
true than of Jafet Lindeberg, the most romantic pioneer and the lead- 
ing mining operator of western Alaska. He decided instantly that no 
matter how many other ships might be sent, one more vessel would 
increase the chance of rescue. With quiet directness he spent fifteen 
thousand dollars of his own money in two or three days to charter the 
famous old ship Corwin, the revenue cutter which sailed under Captain 
Hooper in 1881 in search of the He Long expedition and was the first 
ship to land on Wrangel Island. That voyage has in large part waited 
for its recognition until in 1917 John Muir's narrative of it was pub- 
lished under the title, "The Cruise of the Corwin." The ship was 
now quickly outfitted with a crew of experienced ice men, both white 
and Eskimos. They carried dogs and dog sledges and the Eskimo 
umiaks and were going to attempt bringing the men away even over 
miles of ice if the vessel failed to get near shore — a feat possible with 
umiaks and scarcely otherwise. They had provisions enough for a 
winter, if necessary, for themselves and the KarluJc men. 

McConnell was now in Nome and felt as Lindeberg did about the 
necessity of as many vessels as possible trying to reach Wrangel Island, 



APPENDIX 727 

for in the uncertainties of the ice even the weak may have the luck 
to succeed where the strong fail. McConnell now went to Mr. Swenson, 
the owner of the Seattle walrus and trading schooner, King and Winge, 
and asked him to attempt the rescue. Swenson generously consented 
at once and the three ships were soon under way, bound for Wrangel 
Island. 

With good luck and the skillful management of Captain Joehimsen, 
the King and Winge won the race although Lindeberg's Corwin came 
in the next day. We wiU let McConnell tell the story of the voyage 
to the rescue: 

"My first intimation of the Karluh's fate came at Point Barrow. 
After I had participated in the preliminary stages of the journey over 
the ice, Stefansson placed me in charge of the North Star camp at 
Clarence Bay, with instructions to turn over to Wilkins the ship and 
all the equipment, which he would take to Banks Island. Late in the 
summer I started 'outside' with a definite plan to rescue the Karluk 
survivors, wherever they might be, by airplane. 

"Fortunately the Bear, with Captain Bartlett as a passenger, ar- 
rived at Point Barrow just about the time we arrived from Clarence 
Bay, and it was then for the first time that I learned that the Karluk 
had been crushed in the ice and that at least eight members of the 
party were missing. The Bear was then on her way to Wrangel Island, 
after having made one attempt at rescue, but it seemed to me that the 
chances of rescue would be twice as great if another should approach the 
island from an opposite direction. If the wind kept the ice fields tight 
against the island on one side, I reasoned, the opposite side should be 
comparatively clear of ice. Hastening down to Nome while the Bear 
was en route to the is' and I suggested by cable to the Canadian Gov- 
ernment that it charter another ship to proceed independently of the 
Bear and approach Wrangel Island from a different angle. Whether 
the war prevcUed the Government from giving due consideration to 
this proposal or whether it felt that, having entrusted the rescue work 
to Captain Bartlett and the Bear, it could not entertain this proposal, 
I do not know. At any rate, my suggestion was turned down. 

"It was now late in August. The Karluk had been frozen in two 
weeks earlier the year before, so it was evident that no time was to 
be lost if the survivors were to be rescued. To add further to our 
uneasiness at Nome, the Bear now returned from her second attempt 
at rescue, and reported that she had been blocked by ice twenty miles 
from the island. Without sleds, dogs, or umiaks she had been helpless. 

"It now became apparent that the Karluk surv-ivors were in a pre- 
carious situation. Equipped with an umiak, it would have been a com- 
paratively simple matter for them to have landed on the Siberian 
mainland, but this essential piece of Arctic equipment had not been 
saved from the wreck. The freeze-up was likely to come at any 



728 APPENDIX 

moment, and make rescue impossible. The Bear was to make a third 
attempt as soon as she could replenish her fuel supply, but there was no 
certainty that it would fcs successful. There were three whaling ships 
in the Arctic, each one of which would have made an individual attempt 
at rescue had they not been sure that the Bear would reach the island. 
Now they were hundreds of miles to the northward. Jafet Lindeberg, 
as I learned later when he was the first to congratulate Swenson on 
his daring rescue, had chartered the Corwin, which was then being 
outfitted. 

"But the King and Winge was in the Nome roadstead, ready to 
proceed anywhere at a moment's notice. She was a halibut schooner, 
but she was sheathed with Australian iron bark and equipped with 
excellent gasoline engines. Olaf Swenson, of Seattle, was primarily 
in the Arctic to trade with Siberian natives and hunt walrus, but he 
quickly abandoned these remunerative projects when I represented to 
him the extreme danger of my former comrades. Theretofore, be it 
said to his credit, he had hesitated about joining in the rescue because, 
like others, he had thought the Bear would be successful; he did not 
wish to deprive the Bear of any glory which she might earn. But 
now, I pointed out, the time for formalities was over ; either the sur- 
vivors must be rescued within ten days at the most or they surely would 
starve to death during the winter. Swenson's reply was a simple, 'All 
right; we'll go get 'em.' Within half an hour we were on our way to 
East Cape, Siberia. For he had asked me to go along. The Bear and 
the Corwin were left in the Nome roadstead. 

"At the very outset, Swenson determined that he would not be 
handicapped by the lack of men, dogs, umiaks or any other essential 
Arctic equipment. Arriving at East Cape, therefore, he lost no time 
in securing an umiak, fifteen natives to haul it over the ice should 
the King and Winge be blocked as the Bear had been, and some dogs. 
The umiak, he knew, being light and covered with walrus hide, could 
be dragged over the ice by the natives, launched in the open water 
beyond, dragged over the next field, launched again, and the process 
continued for twenty or a hundred miles if necessary. Swenson, in this 
instance of foresight as in many other details of the rescue, deserves 
the greatest credit. He not only risked his ship and her valuable cargo 
of furs, but he risked his life and the lives of his men to carry out 
this humanitarian effort. 

"In the six hundred-mile trip from Nome to Wrangel Island we 
saw no ice for the first four hundred miles. Then we began to see 
scattered floes, some of them containing walrus that would have yielded 
Swenson thousands of dollars had he stopped the ship to kill them. 
But he realized that delay might mean death to those helpless human 
beings he had come so far to find. The possibility of having one's 
ship crushed by the ice which we now encountered, or frozen in for the 
winter was not pleasant to contemplate. But so far as I know, the 
'full speed ahead' order which he gave Captain Jochimsen on leaving 



APPENDIX 729 

Nome was not changed until we struck ice so densely packed that the 
little schooner was forced to twist and turn, back up and go ahead, 
and even clamber up on a floe, like a polar bear struggling out of the 
water, and break it down with her sheer weight. Only by trying all 
the ice-breaking tactics known to the veteran Captain Jochimsen was 
the King and Winge able to proceed. 

"The ice at this time was moving under the influence of a south- 
west wind, which made the situation rather dangerous, as we were 
in the center of the field, but by keeping the engines going every hour 
of the twenty-four, the staunch little schooner was forced through the 
eighty-mile field of ice and the island reached on the morning of Sep- 
tember 7th. It was quite a feather in Olaf Swenson's cap, yet he gave 
most of the credit to Captain Jochimsen and the chief engineer. We had 
passed pressure ridges almost as high as the masts of the schooner; we 
had bumped and crashed and ground our way through densely packed 
fields, and now we could see the sandy beach of Rodgers Harbor, where 
Captain Bartlett had told us the survivors were to be found. 

"As we came nearer, only one small tent, a flagpole and a cross were 
to be seen; there were no sleds or dogs. When no one appeared in 
response to repeated blasts of the whistle, we began to fear that the 
whole party had perished. Then one man emerged from the tent, 
brushing his hands across his eyes as if he could not believe his senses. 
Then he seemed to realize that here were real men in a real ship, 
and that his six-months' nightmare was over. Without even so much 
as waving his hand in welcome, he returned to the tent, brought out a 
British flag and raised it to half-mast. He was then joined by two 
others, neither of whom seemed to be half as excited as we were. 

"A few of us, headed by Swenson, now went ashore in the umiak, 
where we learned that these unkempt and emaciated individuals were 
Munro, who had been left in charge by Captain Bartlett, Templeman 
and Maurer. Their shaggy, matted hair streamed down over their eyes 
in wild disorder; their grimy faces were streaked and furrowed with 
lines and wrinkles. Munro, it seemed, had lost at least thirty pounds 
in weight; their clothes, in which they had lived and slept for seven 
months or more, were begrimed and tattered. Their sunken eyes and 
emaciated cheeks told of suffering and want. I must add that, although 
I had known all of them well on the Karluk before we set out on the 
hunting trip, I was unable to recognize any one of the three. 

"Malloch and Mamen, they told us, had died during the spring of ne- 
phritis. They pointed to the two graves and the cross. Nine other 
members of the expedition, they said, were to be found forty miles 
to the northeast, at Cape Waring. Of the entire ship's company of 
twenty -five, then. Captain Bartlett and Kataktovik had reached shore; 
Breddy, a sailor had died of a gunshot wound; Malloch and Mamen 
had died of nephritis; and Anderson, Barker, Beuchat, Brady, Murray, 
Mackay, Morris and King had become lost from the main party, never 
to be heard of again. 



730 APPENDIX 

"Hadley, McKinlay, Kurraluk, Keruk (his wife) and their two chil- 
dren, Williamson, Chafe and Williams were found at Cape Waring. 
Had it not been for Hadley and Kurraluk, both skillful and indefati- 
gable hunters, probably the whole party would have starved, as their 
rations had given out three months before. They had abandoned hope 
of rescue for that year; their flimsy tents were torn and full of holes, 
and their food supply, with the exception of a few fish, was practically 
exhausted. They had no way of knowing whether or not Captain 
Bartlett and his Eskimo had reached Siberia, but they did know 
that Wrangel Island sometimes is utterly inaccessible. Only three dogs 
of their original twenty were left, and but one sled of their original 
three. The rest had been lost, with their precious loads, in the water 
between Wrangel and Herald islands. They had matches, but their 
clothing was woefully inadequate. And only that morning they had 
planned to move to the other side of the island, and 'go into winter 
quarters,' as Hadley expressed it. But a snowstorm, which hampered 
the progress of the King and Winge, had delayed the move. For this 
we were in the end very grateful, for to search the island for the sur- 
vivors would have been like looking for the proverbial needle. 

'^I had left a note at Rodgers Harbor for any boat which might 
come after us, and we had left the tent standing as a beacon. McKinlay 
now left another note tied to the tent pole, and I left still another on 
a pole at the edge of the ice. Which reminds me that all Jafet Linde- 
berg had to show for the fifteen thousand dollars he is said to have 
spent in outfitting the Corwin were these two notes of mine — and the 
consciousness of having done more than his duty in the circumstances. 
Each of us had feared for the safety of the Karluh survivors, but quite 
independently, as we had not seen each other in more than a year. 

"Once on board each member of the party was furnished with the 
first bath and change of clothing he had had in more than seven months. 
Then came light and nourishing food, the relation of tales that would 
fill a volume, music on the phonograph, more food and coffee (and con- 
densed milk, which they ate as if it were ice cream), and then repose on 
mattresses of dozens of reindeer skins. The next day, after the gallant 
King and Winge had won her way out of the ice, we met the Bear 
with Captain Bartlett aboard. Swenson was then headed for Nome with 
the rescued survivors, but now Captain Bartlett boarded the King and 
Winge and informed him that he would take his former charges aboard 
the Bear, which would take them to Nome. That, by the way, is why 
many people think the Bear rescued the Karluh survivors, because the 
dispatch that was sent out by the Associated Press merely mentioned 
that the 'Bear had arrived at Nome with the rescued Karluh survivors 
aboard.' The Bear, a wonderful ship in the ice, and Captain Cochran, 
her master, deserve praise for their three attempts, but it is to Swenson 
and Captain Jochimsen, his sailing master, that the credit for the rescue 
belongs." 



THE REGION OF MAXIMUM INACCESSIBILITY IN THE 

ARCTIC * 

BY VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 

[Reprinted from The Geographical Review, Vol. IX, 

September, 1920, No. 9.'] 

Most people imagine that the degree of inaccessibility of polar re- 
gions depends mainly on latitude. This is not true, nor is the problem 
so simple that it can be stated briefly. Neither are the facts suffi- 
ciently known as yet for a final and correct answer. But we do under- 
stand many of the conditions that modify the problem and an approxi- 
mate statement of them is possible. 

The main condition that determines the comparative accessibility 
of points within the polar regions is the configuration of the lands and 
their effect upon the ocean currents. The great oceans, the Atlantic 
and the Pacific, are similar in that each has its own warm current, 
but they differ fundamentally in this: that the Japan current of the 
Pacific is effectually shut out from the Arctic on that side by the 
chain of the Aleutian Islands, so that instead of flowing north into 
the Polar Sea to melt away the ice, it expends its heat chiefly along the 
coast of southern Alaska and the western coast of Canada and the 
United States, profoundly modifying the climate of those regions. But 
in the Atlantic the Gulf Stream flows unhindered northward through 
the wide and deep gap between Norway and Greenland, splitting on 
Iceland and giving it a climate approximately that of Scotland. We 
may truthfully think of the Gulf Stream as melting away the polar 
ice (which otherwise would come down to the northern coast of Iceland) 
with such effect that ships can sail ten or eleven degrees (or seven 
hundred miles) farther north on the Atlantic side than they can on 
the Pacific side of the Arctic. 

TWO STAGES OF APPROACH 

Up to the present, polar exploration has been conducted in two 
stages. First, men sail towards the unexplored area as far as they can 
go in ships. From this point they travel with sledges hauled by dogs 
or men and in some cases by both. 

In connection with this article I have prepared a map showing 

♦See map opposite p. 8, ante. 

731 



732 APPENDIX 

graphically, althoiigli with only approximate correctness, the compara- 
tive accessibility of various points within the arctic regions. The most 
northerly points known to have been attained by ships under sail or 
steam have been plotted on this map, and lines have been drawn 
connecting these points. It is possible that in certain places a ship 
could sail a little farther north; but no ship has as yet done so, and in 
general we may consider this the area "inaccessible to ships." 

Beyond the farthest points yet attained by ships the exploration of 
the polar regions has been carried on mainly by men or dogs drawing 
sledges loaded with supplies upon which both men and dogs depended 
for subsistence. In some cases the length of the journey has been some- 
what extended by the killing of the dogs originally used as draft animals 
and the conversion of their flesh to use as food either for the remaining 
dogs or for the men. 



THE "pole op comparative INACCESSIBILITY" 

It will be generally conceded that the best journey so far made by 
this method was that of Admiral Peary from Cape Columbia to the 
Pole. This is a linear distance of about 410 geographical miles. To 
show graphically some of the points that by this method have an inac- 
cessibility comparable to that of the Pole itself, a distance of 410 miles 
has been allowed for along the meridians on which Nansen, De Long, 
Collinson, and others attained their farthest north by ship, either 
under steam or sail. These positions are marked on the map by dots 
enclosed in small circles. From the dots have been drawn arcs of 
circles of 410-mile radius. The intersecting arcs delimit the inner 
border of a zone of "comparative accessibility" considered from the 
point of view of a system of exploration similar to Peary's. The area 
enclosed by the intersecting arcs — stippled on the map — is the area of 
"comparative inaccessibility." Any point within it is less accessible 
than the North Pole. The average rate of Peary's travel was about 12 
miles a day, so that in five days a distance of sixty miles was covered. 
Isochronic lines representing this distance have been drawn within the 
area of comparative inaccessibility. The center — determined by the 
intersection of arcs with centers at the ships' positions of Peary, Berry, 
and Nansen — is the "Pole of Inaccessibility." It is the point within the 
Arctic regions most difficult of access for any explorer who first goes as 
far as he can by ship and then pushes forward by the use of men and 
dogs hauling sledges. 

When the time of exploration by airplanes or dirigibles shall come, 
this map will still express roughly the comparative inaccessibility of 
various points within the polar regions, for the presumption is that such 
flights would be made from bases established by ships under steam. Of 
course, it will eventually become possible to fly direct from any such city 



APPENDIX 733 

as New York or London to any point within the northern hemisphere, 
and for such undertakings this map will have no significance. 

FACTORS MODIFYING THE THEORETICAL RESULTS 

Should anyone desire to use this map as the basis either for the 
planning of an actual polar expedition or for the illustration of theories 
upon the subject, he will have to bear in mind various modifying fac- 
tors, the most important of which are the following. 

1. When traveling over the surface of the mobile north-polar ice the 
first difficulty is with currents. For instance, it is possible to sail com- 
paratively near the North Pole in the longitude of Spitsbergen; but 
Peary and most of his followers found that when they strove to march 
north in this region their efforts were in part cancelled by the continuous 
southward drift of the ice over which they were traveling. Our own 
work has shown that a similar southward drift, although perhaps not so 
strong a one, would have to be faced by anyone traveling north near the 
138th meridian W. To the north of Grant Land Peary found an east- 
ward drift though it did not handicap him materially. It is probable, 
on the other hand, that anyone starting north from Wrangel Island or 
the New Siberia Islands would get considerable help from a current 
running partly in his favor. 

2. At times an even more serious handicap than an adverse current 
is the frequency of open leads. Judging from the narratives of polar 
explorers, this particular handicap is most serious in the region north of 
eastern Siberia, where Baron Wrangel traveled a century ago, and in the 
belt of generally similar conditions north of Alaska with which I have 
personal acquaintance. This handicap is of little weight northwest of 
Prince Patrick Island, as I have found by experience, and northwest 
of Cape Thomas Hubbard and north of Cape Columbia, as shown by 
the narratives of Peary and MacMillan. 

3. In regions where currents are violent the ice is broken up with a 
resulting formation not only of the leads of open water which we have 
considered, but the heavy pressure ridges which make sledge travel more 
arduous and occasionally compel actual road making with pickaxes. The 
trouble with pressure ridges is generally greatest near land and becomes 
less and less as one goes farther from shore. They are the more trouble- 
some the younger the ice. It seems now fairly clear that much of the 
polar ice is formed originally on the American and Siberian side of the 
Arctic and drifts across past the northern end of Greenland towards 
Franz Josef Land where it vanishes in the Gulf Stream. 

This is one of the many reasons which made Peary's "American route 
to the Pole" the most desirable. Not only could he sail farther north by 
sKip and then have comparatively few leads to contend with, but he had 
the added advantage of traveling in considerable part over ice which 
had been formed many years earlier, perhaps in the Beaufort Sea, and 



7S4 APPENDIX 

had been drifting towards Greenland and gradually thickening season 
by season until it was comparatively smooth and stable. 

4. We have now considered the main points which must be kept in 
mind in interpreting the rather rigid data of the map. There remains 
a matter which was of little consequence to Wrangel, Nansen, or Peary. 
In their work they counted little upon replenishing their stock of food 
and fuel and thus making their journeys longer and easier through the 
killing of local animals, such as seals, polar bear, or fish. The presence 
of these, except near land, was either unsuspected or ignored ; it formed 
no basis of their calculation and did not in practice affect their results 
materially. But in the system of "living off the country" * the animal 
life of the region is vitally important. 

THE QUESTION OF FOOD SUPPLY 

From my study of north polar conditions I conclude that the amount 
of animal life has no direct relation to latitude. We have already seen 
that the North Pole by no means corresponds to the Pole of Inaccessi- 
bility which is distant from it by more than 400 miles. The North Pole 
lies, therefore, towards the edge of the area that is difficult of access 
through being covered with floating ice. It might seem more reasonable 
to suppose, then, that the amount of animal life would vary with dis- 
tance from the Pole of Inaccessibility, but that does not seem to be the 
case either. 

In the present discussion we shall ignore all forms of life except the 
seal, for this is the only animal upon which it appears practical to rely. 
We have seen whales and fish as far from land as we have seen seals, 
but in planning a journey over the ice I think it unlikely that I should 
ever trouble enough about animals other than the seal to carry equipment 
for securing them. It is probable that seals have no great difficulty 
anywhere within the polar area in securing food and that the most seri- 
ous condition they have to fight is the massing of the ice in such a way 
that they cannot come up to breathe. In the summer it can be assumed 
that most of the seals are in open water; that is, they are either living in 
neighborhoods where there are scattered ice cakes like islands in a sea 
of water or else where there are open leads running like great rivers 
across the ice fields. In autumn the water of the leads will freeze over, 
at first with a thin ice that can be easily broken ; but when this ice gets 
to be four inches or more in thickness the seal has to keep open a 
breathing hole by gnawing. Seals that live in comparatively level bay 
ice near land (and the same is doubtless true of seals living under level 
patches of ice on the ocean) have commonly several breathing holes, 
perhaps half a dozen or more, scattered over two or three acres of area. 
These holes are of necessity cigar-shaped, so as to admit the body of the 

♦Vilhjalmur Stefansson: "Living Off the Country as a Method of Arctic 
Exploration," Geogr. Rev., Vol. VII, 1919, pp. 291-310. 



APPENDIX 735 

seal when the ice gets several feet thick. The actual breathing hole to 
the surface frequently is not more than an inch in diameter, and 
may be covered with snow. Presumably the seal, in looking up when 
swimming about in the water, can see light patches where his breathing 
holes are, and thus he is enabled to find them again after having de- 
scended to feed. He does not have to go deep to feed, for he lives 
mainly on the floating animal life near the surface rather than on fishes, 
although he gets a few of these also. He is stationary with reference 
to his breathing holes but continually moving with reference to the sea 
bottom and traveling in the same direction as the ice under which he 
lives. 

It has been understood now for decades that a ship that freezes in the 
ice near Wrangel Island or the New Siberia Islands will arrive three 
or four years later in the ocean north of the Atlantic. Similarly, a seal 
that finds himself in the vicinity of Wrangel Island in the fall of a cer- 
tain year will, in all probability, find himself two or three years later in 
the vicinity of Spitsbergen. Assuming that the ice that drifts across the 
Pole of Inaccessibility, or the North Pole for that matter, was originally 
formed in the Beaufort Sea where seals are known to be abundant, it will 
follow that a certain number of seals are continually being carried across 
either Pole. 

"ice deserts" 

But there are undoubtedly in the Arctic certain "ice deserts." These 
are regions of "Sargasso Sea" character. In them pressure due to winds 
or currents operating from a distance heaps the ice up, and it may even 
remain in an eddy for years. We found one such region north of Prince 
Patrick Island. Seals were not absent but they were comparatively rare, 
and they became more numerous again when we got farther north. On 
coming to such an ice desert the traveler who depends on some method 
similar to ours, where the main reliance for food and fuel is upon seals, 
will find that he is face to face with a problem similar to that of a 
traveler who, in crossing an unknown continent in tropical or temperate 
regions, finds himself gradually entering a desert produced by lack of 
rain. Such a traveler overland would have to depend upon his judgment. 
He might avoid the desert by skirting it; he might turn back, giving 
up his journey for the time being; or he might make a dash across, 
hoping that his resources would take him to the farther side of the hos- 
tile area. Just such a problem one would have to face in ice travel on 
coming to a region where an eddy existed and where massed ice had evi- 
dently persisted for years. 

That is, it would be a problem to a party trying to live by forage. 
To a company using the pemmican-and-relay system it would constitute 
no problem at all. They would care about the smoothness, stability, free- 
dom from leads of the ice, and under these heads they might find the 



736 APPENDIX 

conditions excellent — they probably would. For the presence or absence 
of seals beneath their feet they would care not at all. 

But for those who count on getting their food and fuel as they go, 
these ice deserts are the one source of gravest concern. We cannot tell 
in advance for certain where we shall find them, for we can reason only 
on the basis of what we know and in the Arctic there are still many 
things unknown. When we come to the edge of such deserts we can 
guess only very roughly at their extent or in what direction the diameter 
will be least. They are, in the system of "living by forage," the most 
serious source of danger, although the mere understanding of their 
existence lessens the danger. 



THE WOKK OF THE SOUTHERN SECTION OF 
THE EXPEDITION 

[The following brief summary of the work of the southern sub- 
division of our expedition is condensed from the admirable "Report of 
the Southern Division of the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913," in 
the Report of the Department of the Naval Service for the Fiscal Year 
ending March 31, 1917, published at Ottawa in 1917, and is used here 
by the kind permission of the Department. This was written by 
Dr. Rudolph Martin Anderson, second in command of the expedition 
and in local charge of the southern section. Although the men of 
the scientific staff under him were by training competent and by 
nature diligent. Dr. Anderson deserves not only full credit for what 
he did as zoologist but also in part for what the other scientists 
did in their various departments. The example, cooperation and sym- 
pathy of the commanding officer is reflected both in the volume and 
quality of the staff's scientific output. 

[An attempt has been made to preserve in general Dr. Anderson's 
phraseology and marshaling of facts, but this is difficult in cutting 
the statement to a third of its original length. Much information of 
value, especially geological and topographic — descriptions of rock for- 
mations, altitudes of land forms, distances — has been omitted. The 
excuses are (1) that Dr. Anderson will probably publish eventually his 
own "popular" narrative; (2) the report which we have condensed is ob- 
tainable free by writing to the Department of Nava! Service, Ottawa, 
Canada; (3) the same Department will publish in due course Dr. An- 
derson's full narrative of the Southern Section; and (4) the various 
specialists whose work Dr. Anderson summarizes will in their turn 
(and some have already) publish their detailed findings through the 
official Reports of the Canadian Arctic Expedition. Of these, sixteen 
volumes are in preparation or already published. It is hoped that 
eventually the full scientific report of the expedition will comprise 
several more volumes.* 

[After summarizing the organization of the expedition and the 
progress of it, including the wintering of the Alaska at CoUinson 
Point, Dr. Anderson continues his report as follows :] 

John J. O'Neill started from Collinson Point with two assistants 
in February to begin geological work by a reconnaissance of Firth 

* These scientific reports can be secured by writing to the Deputy Minister, 
Department of Naval Service, Ottawa. Under certain conditions, libraries and 
institutions can secure these reports free. 

737 



738 APPENDIX 

River, whicli comes from the Endicott mountains near the interna- 
tional boundary and empties into the Arctic Ocean near Herschel 
Island. This was carried out successfully, as well as a geological 
reconnaissance of Herschel Island. 

Kenneth Gordon Chipman and John Eaffles Cox left CoUinson Point 
on March 16 and proceeded to Demarcation Point. The coast line was 
mapped, tying in Herschel Island with the surveys of the Alaska- 
Yukon International Boundary Survey of 1912. Cox then joined 
O'Neill in completing the topographical work on Firth River, and the 
coast survey by sled to Escape Reef at the western edge of the Macken- 
zie delta, where a gasoline launch was in readiness to work in the delta 
as soon as the river broke out. 

Chipman and O'Neill later in the spring did some geological work 
in the Black Mountain district west of the Mackenzie until the river 
broke out about June 1. They then proceeded by whale boat through 
the east branch of the Mackenzie, charting it as far as the south end 
of Richard Island. A launch which had been purchased for Chipman's 
survey could not be made to run, and not as much territory was cov- 
ered as expected, but with an expert sailor of the delta as guide, the 
utmost advantage was got from the whale boat, and large portions of 
the middle and east branches were mapped, with a number of cut-off 
channels and smaller channels used in winter sled or summer whale- 
boat travel. At the same time Cox, with a launch that did work well 
and with competent Eskimo guides, surveyed the west or Aklavik 
branch of the delta from Akpaviatsiak or Escape Reef up to the mouth 
of Peel River. 

There is a good 6-foot channel over the shoals around Tent Island, 
near the mouth of the west branch of the Mackenzie delta, and passing 
these there is a deeper channel as far south as the foot of the Grand 
Rapids of the Slave River, 60° North latitude, near the northern boun- 
dary of Alberta. The channel into the east branch of the Mackenzie 
delta is also deep enough for fair-sized schooners, and the new Hudson's 
Bay Company's post at Kittigaruit on the east side of the delta 
is supplied from Herschel Island by this route. The middle channel 
of the delta was not completely surveyed for lack of time. 

Diamond Jenness, after coming ashore with Stefansson from the 
KarluJc in September, 1913, had spent most of the winter in doing 
linguistic work among the Eskimos in the Point Barrow region. To- 
wards spring he came east to Collinson Point and did ethnological and 
archaeological work from Collinson Point to Demarcation Point in the 
spring, later in the summer carrying on some extensive archaeological 
excavations at Barter Island, the ancient trading rendezvous between 
the Mackenzie Eskimos and the western Alaskan Eskimos. Frits 
Johansen made extensive collections of plants and insects, rearing many 
species of insects to study their life-histories and development. Some 
marine dredging was also done. During the fall and winter Chipman 



APPENDIX 739 

and Cox had prepared a map of the harbor at Collinson Point and 
vicinity on the scale of 1/24000 extending it inland to include some 
ten square miles of country with 20-foot contours. The harbor was 
thoroughly sounded. It is not suitable for large vessels, carrying only 
about seven feet of water at the entrance, but is deeper inside. Ves- 
sels of somewhat larger size may obtain shelter by going behind some of 
the small islands in the chain extending west from Flaxman Island. 

During the spring and summer of 1914, the routine and executive 
work of the southern party devolved upon me, including the apportion- 
ment of supplies and equipment for three vessels. As a consequence, 
the time for zoological field work and the preparation of specimens was 
limited; nevertheless, 212 birds representing 52 species, and 77 mam- 
mals representing 13 species were collected and preserved. Nests and 
eggs of many of the species of breeding birds were also collected. 

The expedition vessels Alaska and Mary Sachs left Collinson Point 
on July 25, 1914, the first day that the ice moved off the beach far 
enough to let us out of the harbor. They had been free of the ice 
inside of the harbor sincfe July 7. After some delays occasioned by ice, 
which was thick and close to the beach around Martin Point, Icy Reef 
and Demarcation Point, the Alaska reached Herschel Island August 
5, and the Mary Sachs a few hours later. The 10-ton gasoline schooner 
North Star had been purchased by Stefansson from its owner. Captain 
Martin Andreasen, who was wintering in Clarence Bay, a little east 
of Demarcation Point. She had got in to Herschel Island from Clarence 
Bay a little before. 

These three were the first ships to come into Canadian waters in the 
western Arctic flying the Canadian flag. 

The steam-whaler Belvedere, of Seattle, which had taken on a quan- 
tity of auxiliary supplies, coal, distillate, etc., from Nome in 1913 for 
the expedition, and had been compelled to winter in the ice a little off- 
shore west of Icy Reef, had come through safely and landed our stores 
at Herschel Island about the last of July. 

Herschel Island is a busy place in July and August. Perhaps 
twenty-five or more Eskimo whale boats, and a dozen two-masted Macken- 
zie-built schooners, were assembled here to trade with incoming ships. 
With the recent decline in the whaling industry in the western Arctic, 
and smaller probability of ships wintering at Herschel Island, the Es- 
kimos from the Mackenzie delta and from the westward had a still 
greater incentive than formej-ly to be at the island to trade during the 
short open season. 

As previously reported, Stefansson, after his separation from the 
Karlukj had established a base camp at Martin Point, with supplies 
obtained from Collinson Point, and from the Belvedere and North Star 
outfits, and started north from Martin Point on March 22, 1914, on 
an ice-exploring expedition over Beaufort Sea. The three men of the 
support party returned to land at Kamarkak, about 30 miles west of 



740 APPENDIX 

Herschel Island on April 16, bringing the news that Stefansson and his 
two sailor companions, Storker Storkerson and Ole Andreasen, were 
going ahead fifteen days' more travel before attempting to return, with 
the possibility of trying to push across the ice to Banks Island in case 
conditions were favorable. As there were a much greater number of 
vessels and people than usual located at frequent intervals along the 
coast from Herschel Island west to Point Barrow that season, the party 
would have been soon heard from if they had returned to the mainland 
in the spring or summer. 

The schooner Mary Sachs, under command of George H. Wilkins, 
with a full equipment of provisions, distillate, oil, etc., for two years 
or more, sledges, dogs, and a large gasoline launch, started from Herschel 
Island for Banks Island on August 11, and as we learned in the fol- 
lowing spring, met Stefansson's party near Cape Kellett early in Sep- 
tember, very soon after the vessel reached Banks Island. Of course 
no word of this could reach the outside world until over a year later, 
causing considerable anxiety. The three men of the ice party were 
generally supposed to have been lost. 

The schooners Alaska and North Star sailed east from Herschel 
Island August 17, 1914. The Alaska anchored in Bernard Harbor, 
Dolphin and Union Strait, the evening of August 24, and the North Star 
August 25. We had smooth sailing on summer seas east of Baillie 
Island, free from ice except for a little loose bay-ice in Dolphin and 
Union Strait. 

At Baillie Island we had met the little gasoline schooner Teddy Bear, 
going out under sail after spending five years in the Arctic. This 
vessel, which I had formerly met in Coronation Gulf in 1911, was the 
first pioneer trading vessel to come in east of Cape Parry. The Teddy 
Bear was commanded, engineered, and sailed by a young French-Cana- 
dian named Joseph F. Bernard,* a native of Tignish, Prince Edward 
Island. Of the five winters of this voyage he had spent one in a 
harbor on the south side of Dolphin and Union Strait, about sixteen 
miles south of Liston and Sutton Islands. This harbor in Dolphin and 
Union Strait, being the first good harbor for nearly 200 miles east of 
Pierce Point, was used as a base for two years, 1914-16, by the Southern 
section of the Canadian Arctic Expedition and named by us Bernard 
Harbor, partly in honor of Captain Bernard's pioneer eneirgy in dis- 
covering its suitability and using it as a ship station and in recognition 
of his unusual kindness and rectitude as a pioneer of trade in an un- 
civilized and unexploited land.** 

Bernard Harbor was chosen by us for its strategic advantages for 

* For various references to Captain J. F. Bernard, see index of "My Life 
With the Eskimo." Our Captain Peter Bernard was his uncle. 

** This harbor was discovered but not sounded or otherwise examined, by 
Stefansson and Natkusiak in May, 1910. 



APPENDIX 741 

working the coast both to the west (from Cape Parry) and to the east 
(into Coronation Gulf), as well as its nearness to Victoria Island (about 
35 miles north across the strait). It was about as far east as driftwood 
could be found in reasonable amounts for fuel. 

After discharging- the cargoes of the Alaska and Star, and replac- 
ing a broken propeller on the Alaska, I finally started west with the 
Alaska again on September 6, with the intention of getting some drift- 
wood timber from farther west, as well as some more coal from our 
cache at Baillie Island. The members of the scientific staff, with Chip- 
man in charge, were left at Bernard Harbor, to put up winter quar- 
ters, with some Eskimo assistants. Captain D. Sweeney, Mr. D. W. 
Blue, engineer; Mr. A. Castel, J. Sullivan, cook; Mike, the Eskimo 
assistant engineer, and Ikey Bolt, a Point Hope Eskimo sailor, went 
west with me on the Alaska. Finding weather conditions very favor- 
able at Baillie Island, and no ice reported to the westward, it seemed 
well to go on to Herschel Island, to bring on additional coal and oil, 
and additional supplies which had been expected to arrive from the 
westward during the summer. The Alaska reached Herschel Island 
again September 11. The Ruhy which was expected with supplies from 
the west, had not arrived, and after loading on the Alaska some stores 
from our reserve stock at Herschel Island, we started east again on 
the morning of September 13. 

The Alaska got back to Baillie Island on the night of September 15, 
in the midst of a northwest gale, with frequent snow-squalls, and spray 
freezing on the decks and rigging. The storm kept rising for the next 
two days, the worst storm of the season, and did not abate until noon 
of September 19. There was a very high storm tide, rising about 4 or 
5 feet at BaiUie Island, the waters of Liverpool Bay seeming to have 
been piled up by the northwest gale and forced out between the Baillie 
Islands and the mainland. 

Quantities of large ice had come in from the northwest during 
the big storm, but we tried to go out on the morning of September 20. 
In trying to turn around in our narrow anchorage, the bow of the 
Alaska ran slightly in the mud. We tried to kedge her off, but with 
the falling of the westerly wind, the storm tide fell rapidly,* and we 
were soon settled hard aground. The whole cargo had to be discharged 
and the schooner finally floated free again on the evening of September 
24. • As the nights were getting very dark at this season of the year 
with the moon gone, and considerable heavy ice was coming in from 
the northward, with young ice forming thick and slushy at times, it 
was a precarious matter to sail at night with a small vessel. In the 
summer time, with daylight all night, a vessel can tie up to the ice, 
but it is a different matter in the autumn when the ice is moving in 
the dark. It seemed doubtful that we could get east of Cape Parry, 

* Cf. the grounding under similar conditions of the Polar Bear in 1917, 
ante p. 672. [Notes by V. Stefansson.] 



742 APPENDIX 

o.r possibly Pierce Point, and there are no harbors beyond that nearer 
than Bernard Harbor. As we did not have much to bring back to 
Bernard Harbor, and nothing that was absolutely necessary, the ad- 
vantage in getting back there with the Alaska did not seem commen- 
surate with the risk involved to the vessel, so I decided to put the boat 
into winter quarters at the Baillie Islands. 

On November 20, 1914, I started from the Alasha at Cape Bathurst 
for the winter base of the Southern party on Dolphin and Union Strait, 
an approximate distance of about 400 miles,* accompanied by Castel, 
Sullivan and the Eskimo, Ikey Bolt, taking one Nome sled and seven 
dogs. We followed the west side of Franklin Bay 90 miles to Langton 
Bay and crossed the Paj*ry peninsula to Damley Bay where we passed 
the house of Captain Christian Klengenberg,** an ex- whaler with his 
family, and another house belonging to an Eskimo family. Klengen- 
berg's young son and daughter had a temporary trapping camp a little 
east of Cape Lyon, and east of that there were no inhabitants west of 
Dolphin and Union Strait. East of Baillie Island there are no per- 
manent residents, and the western Eskimos make only casual excur- 
sions into the territory. 

The Star had made a cache of provisions and coal oil at Pierce 
Point in the fall, and we took some supplies from it on this trip. 
We found enough driftwood for fuel at every campsite along the coast. 
On December 10, behind Keat's Point, we met Chipman and O'Neill 
with a sled. They had left Bernard Harbor November 19, to make a 
preliminary topographical and geological reconnaissance as far west 
as Pierce Point, in preparation for the coming spring's work, as well 
as to look for the whereabouts of the Alaska. They turned around 
and accompanied us eastward. We found open water near shore 
all along from Cape Lyon to Clifton Point. At Deas Thompson Point 
the ice had recently broken away from the cliffs and we had to make 
a detour over the hills. We reached the winter quarters of the main 
party about noon, December 25. The temperature in general was 
warmer than usual at that season, not going below zero Fahrenheit at 
any time of observation during the first two weeks of December, 1914, 
and on occasion rising to 25° above zero Fahrenheit. The freeze-up 
in 1914 occurred at Cape Bathurst about September 30, and at Ber- 
nard Harbor about October 16. 

Everything was in good shape at Bernard Harbor. A frame house 
had been built, covered partially with boards and partially with canvas, 
and the whole sodded over. Enough small driftwood had been picked 
up in autumn to last for fuel until Christmas, and more was hauled 

* For an account of the first sledge journey ever made by white men along 
the coast from Franklin Bay to Coronation Gulf, see "My Life With the 
Eskimo," pp. 159 ff. 

** See references to Captain Klinkenberg in index of "My Life With the 
Eskimo." [Notes by V. Stefansson.] 



APPENDIX 743 

later in the winter, and pieced out by a sparing use of coal. East 
of Cape Bexley there is very little large driftwood on the beaches. 

About thirty seals had been killed at Bernard Harbor in the autumn, 
but only four caribou. The Eskimos on the Victoria Island side 
north and east of Bernard Harbor killed large numbers of the caribou 
in the autumn, and we were able to purchase all the frozen caribou 
meat we needed as soon as they could haul it across, and later, after 
the Eskimos' winter sealing by spearing through the ice had com- 
menced, we were able to buy all the fresh seal meat we needed for 
dog-food or table use. 

During February and March, 1915, Castel and myself made a to- 
boggan trip from Bernard Harbor across the west end of Coronation 
Gulf, up the Coppermine River, to Dismal Lake, and across to the 
Dease River, northeast of Great Bear Lake. We were much delayed by 
soft snow amongst rough, jagged ice on the Coppermine, and our dogs 
were too exhausted to be able to proceed very far through the deep, soft 
snow on Dease River, so we had to turn back to the coast without 
making connections with any white man or Indians on Great Bear 
Lake to take out our winter's mail. We reached Bernard Harbor 
again April 1, and a little later the mail was sent out along the coast 
to the Alaska at Baillie Island.* 

On the Coppermine River, around Dismal Lake, on the Horton 
River (south of Franklin Bay), and to a less extent farther west, we 
have often noted the large proportion of dead spruce trees near the 
northern limit of timber. In some areas about 90 per cent, of the trees 
are dead, in districts which show little o.r no evidence of forest fires. 
Johansen and Jenness accompanied our inland trip as far as the edge 
of the timber-line on the Coppermine, near the Sandstone Rapid. 
Johansen made a careful study of forest conditions here and found 
that practically all the dead trees which were examined had apparently 
been killed by bark-beetles, three species of them being found. 

The program for the spring's work had been planned before going 
inland. Cox, with an assistant, started in March and made a ca.reful 
survey of the coast along the south side of Dolphin and Union Strait 
from Chantry Island east to Cape Krusenstern and as far south as 
Lockyer Point. Starting again in April, he carried the survey around 
the west end of Coronation Gulf as far as the mouth of Rae River. 
Rae River was ascended and carefully surveyed for about 70 miles, 
until it forked into two small creeks. Large willows were found at 
rather frequent intervals on Rae River after getting some way from 

* Cf. the account of a journey made in 1911 through the same country in 
"My Life With the Eskimo," pp. 237 ff. It was made easily and rapidly then 
because the sledges were light and we lived by hunting. Dr. Anderson's 
diflBculty in 1915 was that his sledges were heavily loaded with food. They 
sank into the snow in consequence, progress was retarded and the dogs 
and men worn out by heavy work pulling the loaded sled. [Note by V. 
Stefansson.] 



744 APPENDIX 

the boats, but no spruce or other timber. After reaching the head of 
Rae River, Cox's party crossed overland to the south side of Stapylton 
Bay. They had no difficulty in killing a caribou whenever they needed 
meat. Cox reached Bernard Harbor May 25. 

Chipman and O'Neill started on the western survey from Bernard 
Harbor on March 17, 1915, going direct to the west end of Damley 
Bay and working east. Connecting with the previous surveys of the 
Parry peninsula, the survey was carried east during April, the season 
being much further advanced than it was farther east during the same 
period. 

The southern part of Darnley Bay had never been surveyed before 
and only imperfectly explored. Two fairly large rivers flow into the 
south and southeast sides of the bay. Inland on the east side of 
Damley Bay beach gravels and terraces above 500 feet were found. 
From Darnley Bay until east of Deas Thompson Point there are a 
number of high points which have received the name of mountains, but 
no definite system or range is apparent. The highest of these points 
(Mount Davy) is between the Croker and Inman Rivers. The coast 
has a well-defined shore-line of rock or boulders and gravel. None of 
the rivers flowing to the coast east of Darnley Bay extend any great 
distance inland. Both valleys and beds indicate a very heavy run-off 
in a short time. 

The coast-line as traversed from Cape Lyon eastward was found to 
be somewhat more straight than the former charts give it, but this is 
apparently due to the practical impossibility of sketching a coast-line 
accurately on a hurried boat-passage some distance offshore, with in- 
frequent landings. This method has given the result that many of 
the so-called points on this coast are not salient projections of the 
coast-line. More often the charted points and capes are high land or 
rock cliffs with low land on either side. This gives the higher places 
the appearance of points or capes when viewed from a distance. Our 
method of locating control points at frequent intervals by latitude, 
longitude and azimuth observations, traversing between these points 
by frequent compass sights and pacing all the intervening shore-line, 
will undoubtedly give a more accurate map. No serious rectification 
was necessary however until Stapylton Bay and eastward. Numerous 
fossil shells are found along the old beach terraces. West of Chantry 
Island fossils were collected from the 15-foot and 30-foot horizons. 
These fossils may be duplicated on the present strand-line. Near the 
mouth of Inman River, fossil shells were found in numbers up to 
170 feet above sea-level. 

In an examination of the rocks from the foot of Darnley Bay to 
Cape Krusenstern, no evidence of the existence of copper was seen. 

After returning from the inland trip up the Coppermine, I started 
west from Bernard Harbor April 21 to reinforce the western survey 
party, meeting Chipman and O'Neill coming east near Deas Thompson 




Old Point Barrow Woman. 




Half-grown Boy — Copper Eskimos. 



APPENDIX 745 

Point. The Eskimos, Ikey and Palaiyak, who were with the party, were 
sent on to Baillie Island with the mail, and to help on the Alaska, while 
I returned eastward with the survey party. Instructions were for- 
warded to Captain Daniel Sweeney of the Alaska at Baillie Island, 
and he carried out the summer's work of the vessel very creditably 
and carefully, bringing in the mail and a good load of additional pro- 
visions and coal from Herschel Island, arriving at Bernard Harbor 
September 5, 1915. The small schooner El Sueno which had been en- 
gaged by Stefansson at Herschel Island to bring in additional supplies, 
arrived September 7, and at once went west again to winter at Pierce 
Point, for the purpose of trapping. The Atkon, a schooner belonging 
to the Church of England Mission, was blown up on the shore between 
Clifton Point and the mouth of Croker River, but the vessel was appar- 
ently uninjured, and the missionaries established a winter camp there. 

Our western survey party reached the station at Bernard Harbo.r on 
May 24, 1915, one week ahead of schedule. The unusually mild weather 
during the month of May facilitated our work very much. The skies 
were usually clear, and conditions good for traveling and taking ob- 
servations. The weather was very warm and the snow thawing fast 
around Croker River May 16, but east of that point the season was 
more backward. The snowfall is not very deep in this region, however, 
and after the snow really starts melting, it disappears from the land 
within a very few days, except the remains of deep snowdrifts in 
gullies and on the shady side of hills. 

On May 21, 1915, Wilkins arrived at Bernard Harbor, accompanied 
by Crawford, discharged as engineer of the Northern party's schooner 
Sachs, and Natkusiak. They had come from the winter quarters of 
the Sachs near Cape Kellett, Banks Island, making the trip in about 
twenty-five days, by way of Victoria Island. Wilkins had come to make 
arrangements to take the Star to Banks Island or Prince Patrick 
Island as an auxiliary for proposed more extended work of the Northern 
party. Our plans for the Southern party had been based on the cer- 
tainty of having the Star for the summer's work in Coronation Gulf, 
as the Alaska was at Baillie Island, and bound to go to Herschel Island 
before coming in again. It was finally arranged that the Star should 
lay down some provision depots in Coronation Gulf and take the gaso- 
line launch and outfit as far east as Cape Barrow, before going to Banks 
Island. 

On the ice of Coronation Gulf Wilkins this spring secured studies 
of Eskimo life in camps on the ice, and later in the season, views of 
their summer camps, fishing scenes, home life and habits. About 2,000 
feet of film was exposed, most of which was ultimately developed and 
found to be good. He also made a very good series of portrait studies 
of most of the local Eskimos (Dolphin and Union Strait) men, women 
and children, in full view and in profile, for Jenness's ethnological work. 
He also made good photographs of growing plants, insects, etc., for the 



746 APPENDIX 

botanist and entomologist, and many photographs of birds, mammals, 
etc., in their natural habitat; pictures of great scientific as well as 
artistic value. 

The western survey parties having finished their work late in May, 
it became necessary to start early summer work at once to the eastward. 
The Northern party had made good use of waterproof tarpaulins in 
constructing sled-rafts to cross leads, being unable to haul canoes over 
rough ice, but of course this made no provision for travel after the 
break-up of the ice. Our problems were somewhat different, as in 
Coronation Gulf the ice was comparatively smooth. We took a large 
umiak, about 28 feet in length and 6 feet beam, covered with heavy 
bearded-seal skins, and strengthened the stern timbers to provide for 
the adjustment of an Evinrude detachable gasoline motor, which proved 
to be a valuable auxiliary. The canoe could be lifted by two men and 
placed on a low, ivory-shod boat-sled, which could be hauled in the 
spring by four or five dogs, carrying several hundred pounds of baggage 
inside the boat. If necessary to cross a lead, the umiak could be un- 
shipped and launched in a few minutes, and if the ice should break, the 
canoe would be launched automatically, already loaded. Later in the 
season, the umiak proved its worth by carrying two or three men, three 
dogs, and a thousand pounds or more of provisions, gasoline, and camp 
gear, making 5 to 6 miles per hour, and weathering some pretty heavy 
seas. It could be beached on any kind of coast in a hurry, by rolling 
it up on inflated sealskin "pokes," a great advantage when exploring 
a coast whose harbors are unknown, and a sudden breeze speedily raises 
a dangerous lop, as it does in Coronation Gulf. The umiak is also a 
very useful boat among ice floes, as it is practically unstovable and can 
be easily and quickly hauled upon or over an ice cake, and it will also 
stand bumping over the boulders on a river-bottom which might prove 
disastrous to a wooden boat. The weight of a wooden boat of sufficient 
size would also be an insuperable obstacle to transportation by sled. For 
inland work in the Coronation Gulf region, recourse must be had to 
"packing" in the summer, as most of the streams are too small and 
rapid to be navigable for any distance. 

June 9, 1915, Cox and O'Neill started eastward from Bernard Har- 
bor with the umiak on a boat-sled, taking also another large sled-load 
of supplies. They had as assistant for the early summer Natkusiak, who 
had been with me in the region several years before, and also as an 
experiment, a family of Coppermine Eskimos. We had heretofore little 
success in getting useful service from the local aborigines, who have 
little or no idea of working for any one. It seemed necessary, how- 
ever, to engage somebody to look after the sledge dogs, or part of them, 
after the surveying party should have to take to boat work, and this na- 
tive was engaged to help in the spring and look after our dogs during 
the summer at a fishing-place on one of the rivers on the south side of 
Coronation Gulf. Mupfa turned out to be a capable, intelligent man, 



APPENDIX 747 

willing to learn, carried out his agreement for the summer very credit- 
ably, and rendered loyal service to the expedition for the remainder of 
the year. The party was to proceed by sled to Tree River, or the 
Annielik (in Gray's Bay) ; during the early summer to work geologically 
up some of the rivers in that region, moving gradually along the coast 
to Cape Barrow, the western extremity of Bathurst inlet, where Chip- 
man and I would meet them with the Star about the first of August, 
bringing the gasoline launch and additional supplies. 

During the early summer of 1915, Chipman began a stadimeter 
survey of the region about Bernard Harbor, with 20-foot contours. 
Johansen did some dredging for marine life in the inner and outer 
harbors, and completed his collections of the plants and insects of the 
region, while my own collections of birds and mammals was consider- 
ably increased. Quantities of salmon trout were sun dried for winter 
dog-food, and some caribou meat for our own consumption. The few 
families of Eskimos who remained about during the early summer 
dried large numbers of lake trout, catching them with hooks through 
the ice in June and early in July, and spearing and gaffing large num- 
bers of salmon trout which were impounded in stone weirs when they 
started to run up the streams in July. By the last of July all the 
local Eskimos had departed on their summer packing expeditions to 
look for caribou inland. 

The summer of 1915 was late and cold, and the ice melted slowly, 
but by July 20 all of it was out of the harbor. Bay ice disappears with 
wonderful- rapidity at that season, the hot sunshine cutting away the 
top almost visibly. After the harbor and the large bay south of Chantry 
Island were free. Dolphin and Union Strait was still pretty full. Broad 
leads opened up outside for a little, but the ice seemed pretty solid to 
the eastward. A steady, strong northwest wind for a week kept driving 
the floes dovm into and blocking up the Strait. 

After being held for nearly two weeks after the break-up by heavy 
ice packed into Dolphin and Union Strait by continued westerly winds, 
a spell of easterly wind started the ice moving westward again, and we 
worked the 8tar out through east of Chantry Island August 9, finding 
the ice slowly moving westward. In due course we reached Port Epworth, 
the splendid harbor at the mouth of Tree River. We found O'Neill and 
Cox camped in a little bay just east of Cape Barrow. 

The 8tar put down a large cache of provisions and gasoline at Port 
Epworth, and another at Cape Barrow for use during the summer of 
1915 and the possibility of sledge work in the spring of 1916. She then 
started westward, having been delayed only three days after getting out 
of the harbor in making the eastern trip. With a stiff breeze behind 
her, she was back at Bernard Harbor within twenty-four hours, and 
finding all the ice had moved to the westward, kept on going and soon 
reached Baillie Island. The party who went west on her were Wilkins, 
commanding; Castel, Crawford (discharged at Baillie Island to go out 



748 APPENDIX 

on schooner Riiby) ; and Natkusiak. The party remaining at Cape 
Barrow consisted of four men, Chipman, Cox, O'Neill and myself, with 
one 20-foot wooden gasoline launch with 7-horsepower Gray motor, 
and the skin umiak with Evinrude motor. 

Cox and O'Neill, with their Eskimo assistants, had left Bernard 
Harbor June 9, hauling the skin umiak on a boat-sled, and crossed 
Coronation Gulf direct from Cape Krusenstern to the mouth of the 
Tree River (Port Epworth). The season was much further advanced 
around Tree River than it was at Bernard Harbor and the ice was 
soon cut away around the mouth of the river. Large quantities of fish 
were caught after the opening of the bay, and in addition to what were 
used by the party and their large bunch of dogs, over 500 pounds 
were dried, baled and put en cache on the island at the mouth of the 
harbor for autumn use. Wolverines are surprisingly abundant on the 
coast in this region, and unless provisions and stores are cached on 
islands they are apt to suffer from their ravages. [Polar bears are rare 
or absent.] 

Tree River was explored for some distance inland on a packing 
expedition in July. Like all the other streams in this region (in the 
granite area) it has rapids, cascades, and falls a few miles from its 
mouth. It abounds in fish and several families of Eskimos usually spend 
the summer at the first cascade, catching fish by spear, hook, and rak- 
ing with a sort of double gaff-hook. Salmon trout and two species of 
white-fish are largely caught in the rivers, while big lake trout are 
found in nearly every lake of any size. The country a little back from 
the mouth of Tree River is dotted with innumerable clear lakes, basins 
in the granite, and the vegetation, particularly in flowering plants, is 
richer than the average. A good collection of plants was made. 

Tree River has two large branches, one of them said to rise near the 
Coppermine. This western branch of Tree River is said to have spruce 
trees near its source. The scenery around Port Epworth is striking, 
vertical cliffs of dark-colored diabase, with long talus slopes, rising to 
a height of 600 feet above sea-level on either side of the harbor. About 
five miles south of the mouth of Tree River a ridge of rounded granite 
mountains runs to the south and east side of the river, the highest 
peak visible, about ten miles back from the entrance of the harbor, 
being 1,090 feet above sea-level. About half a mile east of the mouth 
of Tree River, there are small crevices or pockets in the granite which 
are filled with the soft potstone (a talc chlorite schist), much used by 
the Eskimos of this region for making the blubber-lamps which are 
universally used by them, and also for making stone cooking pots. 
The use of the cumbersome, heavy and fragile stone pots, however, is 
rapidly declining, owing to the much greater convenience of tin, iron, 
and copper-ware which are being introduced in trade. There is no 
known potstone quarry west of Tree River, and most of the stone 
utensils come from there although the Eskimos informed us that there 



APPENDIX 749 

are also some smaller stone deposits on the Utkusikaluk, flowing into 
Gray Bay, and somewhere around Cape Barrow. 

Cape Barrow, or Haninek, as it is called by the Eskimos, is a moun- 
tainous granitic region, but is not nearly so high as stated by Frank- 
lin * He says : "The higher parts attain an elevation of 1,400 and 
1,500 feet and the whole is entirely destitute of vegetation." In 1915 
we found the height of the highest of the granite ridges to be 340 
feet above sea-level. Although the hills have a barren appearance, 
careful inspection shows many bright green patches in little valleys 
and gullies where soil has collected, as well as in basins in the rocks, 
around the little lakes — green grass, low dwarf willow, deep tundra 
moss, cotton-grass or "nigger-head" tussocks and heather growing lux- 
uriantly in many shelving rocks. There were about ten species of 
flowering plants in bloom close to our camp August 13. The summits 
of the granite ridges were usually covered with gray lichens. In this 
region we were often deceived by great reddish areas on cliffs, giving the 
appearance of a ferruginous rock, but upon closer examination prov- 
ing to be only a dense coat of red lichens. 

After the return of the Star to the westward, Chipman, Cox, O'Neill 
and myself continued the survey east from Cape Barrow. We were 
prevented from getting back to the station before the freeze-up, as the 
almost continuous heavy weather late in the autumn prevented us from 
traveling a large part of the time with our small boats. 

We foundi our first native copper in situ in cracks in the diabase 
on an island in Moore Bay. Small veins of galena (lead sulphide) were 
observed in cracks in the granite at Galena Point, just east of Deten- 
tion Harbor. 

From Kater Point, O'Neill, Cox and I continued to carry on the 
survey with the launch down the west side of Arctic Sound. Some 
difficulty was experienced in finding a channel into the mouth of Hood 
River through a number of low sandy islands at the mouth, on account 
of a heavy sea running at the time. After entering the river we found 
a channel 9 or 10 feet deep. Willows on the bank here were 5 or 6 
feet high, one inch or more in diameter, affording more fuel than was 
usual in this region. We could take the launch up only to the first 
cascade of the Hood River, and camped there on August 27, making an 
inland reconnaissance in the direction of the James River. The steep 
clay banks of the river are about 100 feet high at the first cascade, 
with a level grassy bench extending back about half a mile to a ridge 
of fine, red sandstone with a broad grassy valley beyond. The next ridge 
was quartzite, succeeded by another grassy valley. A herd of thirty-four 
caribou was found here, and one fat young bull killed to replenish our 
meat supply. A lone bull had been seen and killed at Kater Point 

* "Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819, 
20, 21, and 22." By John Franklin, Captain R. N., F. R. S., and Commander of 
the Expedition. London, John Murray, Albemarle Street. MDCCCXXIII. 



750 APPENDIX 

a few days before. Going out of the river again the coast of Arctic 
Sound was followed to its bottom. A fine large specimen of the Barren 
Ground bear was killed at the south end of Baillie's cove, the extreme 
bottom of Arctic Sound, where he was found digging roots from the 
sandy soil near the mouth of a small creek. 

Native copper was found in amygdules on both sides of Banks Penin- 
sula. Having struck a considerable copper-bearing district in Bathurst 
Inlet, it was thought better to make a detailed geological sheet of this 
important area than to attempt to make a complete survey of the bot- 
tom of Bathurst Inlet outside of the copper area. Driftwood was very 
scarce east of Kater Point, but by picking up every small piece we 
saw on the beaches, we usually managed to carry enough in the boats 
to last us a day or two. Bird and animal life was remarkably scarce 
along the coast. Caribou signs were seen occasionally, and fresh 
tracks on some of the islands. A very fine large bull caribou was killed 
on Kannayok Island, Bathurst Inlet, by Cox on September 3. Num- 
bers of gulls were nesting in rookeries near Point Wollaston and on 
the south side of the Barry Islands. 

"Barry Island" (cf. Franklin) instead of being a single island is 
really a group of large islands. The region around Point Everitt is 
known as Umingmuktok, and is the center of a fairly large group of 
Eskimos called Umingmuktogmiut. The Eskimos who frequent the 
southern and western parts of Bathurst Inlet are mostly Kilusiktog- 
miut, and this region in general is known as Kilusiktok. 

As the season was getting advanced, we felt impelled to turn back 
from Ekallialuk (Barry Island) on September 8, 1915, without going 
to the bottom of Bathurst Inlet. The geological results had been 
encouraging, for two large areas, each of several square miles in extent, 
were discovered, in which the native copper is widely distributed, and 
much valuable geological knowledge had been gained in tracing the 
contact of the basalts with the granites and sedimentaries throughout 
the region. The plan was made to complete the detailed mapping of 
the copper-bearing area by sledge the following spring by one party, 
while another party should fill in the gaps remaining in the coast 
survey west of Bathurst Inlet. We [traveled part of the distance by 
boat and part by sled after the freeze-up and] reached the station 
November 9, 1915, and on that date received the first mail and news 
from the outside world that we had received for fifteen months. 

Jenness, our ethnologist, arrived at Bernard Harbor on November 
8, 1915. He had started out with a small band of Eskimos. These 
Eskimos fulfilled all their promises and obligations to Jenness in a 
very kindly and creditable manner. They spent most of the summer 
in the Colville hills in southern Victoria Island, and did not go to 
Prince Albert Sound, as had been anticipated. A few Prince Albert 
Sound Eskimos came to visit them in the spring, however. The party 
were moving most of the time, following the caribou, and supplementing 



APPENDIX 751 

the caribou to some extent with fish caught in the lakes. They did 
not suffer from lack of food, but experienced considerable discomfort 
from being without fuel for either cooking or warming themselves for 
a good part of the time. Jenness had some very interesting experiences, 
and obtained a good understanding of the language, habits, folk-lore, 
and viewpoints on life in general, such as can only be obtained by 
continued intimate relations. During the winter he supplemented this 
with intensive studies of the winter snow-house life, and many gramo- 
phone records of songs, shamanistic performances, and the like. Fin- 
ger-prints of many of the people and many of their string-games, or 
cats'-cradles were recorded. 

The AlasJca had arrived at Bernard Ha.rbor on September 5, 1915, 
after going from Baillie Island to Herschel Island for the mail and 
supplies. After discharging cargo, the Alaska went back west to Stapyl- 
ton Bay to look for driftwood, as the amount of coal brought in was 
small. 

Johansen had been in charge of the Bernard Harbor station since 
the Star left on August 9, with only the cook and Patsy Klengenberg, 
interpreter, to help him. He had been authorized to do some dredging 
with the Alaska after her return, so he accompanied her on the trip to 
Stapylton Bay. He got some valuable soundings and dredgings in Dol- 
phin and Union Strait, down to a depth of 50 fathoms, and obtained 
a quantity of specimens from greater depths than he had been able 
to reach before. Johansen made continued studies of the fresh-water 
life of the ponds and lakes in the vicinity of the station, and made 
fairly complete collections of the flora and insect life. Johansen also 
did some other hydrographic work in the harbor and in the neighbor- 
ing fresh-water lakes. 

The caribou began to migrate across Dolphin and Union Strait 
shortly after our return from the east, and were coming in fairly large 
numbers by November 15, 1915. About forty were taken before the 
end of the month (including about ten brought by Jenness from the 
south side of Victoria Island), so a plentiful supply of fresh meat was 
on hand all winter. Salmon trout were also taken in some numbers 
up to the middle of December in nets set under the ice of the lakes 
near the station. 

Captain Sweeney brought in the news that Daniel Wallace Blue, 
chief engineer of the Alaska, died at the Baillie Islands, on May 2, 
1915, after an illness of ten days. There was no other illness among the 
members of the Southern party during the year 1915, except a slight 
illness of Jenness while he was spending the summer with the Eskimos 
on Victoria Island. 

Tidal observations were taken at Bernard Harbor for a time in the 
spring of 1915. The maximum rise of tide recorded was about 2V2 
feet. 

Only three or four families of Eskimos were around Bernard Harboi 



752 APPENDIX 

in the late summer and early autumn of 1915, but about the middle 
of November they began to come up from the Coppermine River region, 
and from the south coast of Victoria Island, until about 125 were living 
in a snow-house village on the beach near the station. Most of them 
stayed around for about three weeks, living principally on caribou 
meat, while their women were engaged in making new caribou-skin 
garments for the winter. All this work had to be done on land, as 
the natives of this region have taboos which forbid them dressing cari- 
bou-skins or making new caribou-skin garments while living on the 
ice. This was a happy part of the year for them, and there was sing- 
ing and dancing most of the time. In the early part of December, 
when their new winter clothing was completed, and their stocks of 
frozen meat, dried meat, and fish began to run low, they all moved out 
to the vicinity of Liston and Sutton Islands, in the middle of Dolphin 
and Union Strait, about 16 miles north of Bernard Harbor. The 
people build snow-houses on the ice there, and live practically exclu- 
sively on seals for the rest of the winter. 

A good collection of mammals and birds was made around Bernard 
Harbor this year and Jenness brought back a few zoological specimens 
from Victoria Island. 

January and February, 1916, were spent by the geological and topo- 
graphical men mostly in working up their field notes and preparing 
for the spring work. Jenness spent most of the winter at the large 
Eskimo sealing village near the Okallit (Liston and Sutton) Islands, 
pursuing his ethnological studies. I made a trip to the first timber on 
the Coppermine River with some of the hunters in January and Feb- 
ruary, and a quantity of caribou meat was brought back to replenish 
the house supply, as well as a few zoological specimens. Caribou were 
found to be fairly plentiful down to the coast near the mouth of the 
Coppermine River, and we also saw one small herd south of Cape Lam- 
bert. Caribou are not often seen near the coast of Dolphin and Union 
Strait in winter. The natives in this region spend the winter sealing 
through the ice, and at the present time do not molest the caribou 
from November until April. 

I returned to Bernard Harbor from the Coppermine River trip on 
February 27, having been gone a little over a month. It had been 
arranged that Chipman should start on March 1 to make a survey of 
Croker River before starting the eastern work. This seems to be the 
largest river between Darnley Bay and Coronation Gulf, and nothing 
but its mouth had been put on the charts previously. I decided that I 
would accompany Chipman on this trip, which was of interest not only 
as giving an important geological section into the heart of the country, 
but might also throw more light on animal distribution, particularly 
of the ovibos. Owing to stormy weather we did not get away from 
Bernard Harbor until March 6, and reached the mouth of Croker River 
on March 15. Near Clifton Point we spent a night at "Camp Neces- 



APPENDIX 753 

8ity/' a little cabin built in the fall of 1915, by Kev. H. Girling, of the 
Anglican Mission service, and his assistants, Mr. G. E. Merritt, of St. 
John, N. B., and Mr. W. H. B. Hoare, of Ottawa. They had intended 
to come farther east, but had been cast up with their little schooner 
nearly a hundred miles west of the Eskimos they were intending to 
work among. Their schooner was apparently uninjured, and they ex- 
pected to move in to Dolphin and Union Strait in the summer of 1916, 
and establish a mission at Bernard Harbor. The present western 
range of the Copper Eskimos extends usually to Cape Bexley or South 
Bay; west of that point is a 200-mile stretch of coast to Cape Lyon 
permanently uninhabited, and usually uninhabited west to Cape Bath- 
urst, about 400 miles. 

[We explored Croker River about 40 miles inland and found it to 
flow through rocky, comparatively barren country. No noteworthy min- 
eral outcrops were found, game was scarce, and no signs of ovibos were 
found.] 

We returned to the coast March 24, and reached Bernard Harbor 
April 2. The coldest weather of the winter was recorded while we 
were in camp up the Croker River, 46 degrees below zero Fahrenheit 
at 6 A. M., March 21. The thermometer rose to 9 degrees below zero 
at 4:30 the same day. The minimum temperature at Bernard Harbor 
the same day was 38 below zero, and the maximum 23 below zero. 

A number of the eastern Eskimos came to Bernard Harbor late in 
March and many interesting gramophone records of the language and 
dialects were obtained. Earlier in the winter some Eskimos came 
from a greater distance to visit the station, notably a man named 
Kakshavik or Kakshavinna, calling himself a Pallirmiut, from the 
northwestern side of Hudson Bay. He claimed to have come from 
a timbered country far to the eastward, and had traded at a white 
man's post, from his description apparently in the region of Baker Lake 
or the Kazan River. 

Johansen, with Ovayuak (Eskimo) for companion, made a trip along 
the south shore of Victoria Island, leaving the station March 6, and 
returning April 11, 1916. They crossed by way of the Liston and 
Sutton Islands, Lady Franklin Point, visited the Miles Islands, and 
went along the Richardson Islands as far as Murray Point on the south 
shore of Victoria Island. No Eskimos were seen except one group 
camped on the ice near Cape Murray. He made such botanical collec- 
tions as were possible at that season, took a few zoological specimens, 
and a number of specimens of rock at various points along the south 
shore of Victoria Island. A few caribou were seen on southern Victoria 
Island on March 19 and 21. The most important results of his trip 
were a number of species of fossil corals collected on one corner of 
Liston Island in Dolphin and Union Strait, as recognizable fossils 
are very hard to find in that whole region. After his return Johansen 
spent the rest of the season in completing his biological investigations 



754 APPENDIX 

near Bernard Harbor, and in packing specimens and equipment pre- 
paratory to going out. His collections of plants and insects were prac- 
tically complete for the region, and he made considerable additions 
to his collections and studies of fishes and marine and fresh-water in- 
vertebrates. 

O'Neill and Cox started from Bernard Harbor on March 17, 1916, 
to continue the survey of the copper-bearing area in the Bathurst Inlet 
region. They succeeded in cleaning up the work pretty well as planned. 
Their time was spent in making a more complete geological sheet of 
the mainland and islands in the upper northwestern portion of Bathurst 
Inlet. Over 200 islands were mapped in the region generally covered 
in the charts by Chipman, Lewes and Marcet Islands. The group 
consists of many small rocky islands which at a little distance have the 
appearance of forming a continuous coast-line. 

The work of O'Neill and Cox in March, April and May, 1916, com- 
pleted the survey east to Cape Barrow practically as planned. O'Neill 
summarizes the results of the work in that region as follows: "The 
copper-bearing rocks in Bathurst Inlet occur on most of the islands 
west of a line running northwest-southeast from the east side of Lewes 
Island, and north of Kannayok Island. They cover most of the Banks 
Peninsula and the western mainland shore from the mouth of Hood 
Kiver to Moore Bay, extending as much as 5 or 6 miles inland from 
the coast. These rocks are amygdaloids and form several successive 
layers which represent progressive, intermittent effusions of lava. 
Nearly all of them are impregnated with native copper over wide areas. 
The copper occurs in veins and in amygdules, and is disseminated as 
pepper throughout the ground mass. I have made a very conservative 
estimate of the amount of this copper-bearing rock (in which I actually 
saw native copper) and it seems that two billion tons is well within the 
limit. It will be necessary to wait for analyses, and for the plotting of 
the map to give a close estimate of the value of these deposits." 

Chipman, with Eskimo camp assistants, and Corporal W. V. Bruce,* 
E. N. W. M. P., as voluntary aide, left Bernard Harbor on April 12, 
1916, to finish the survey of the south side of Coronation Gulf east 
from the mouth of Bae Biver (where Cox left off in 1915) to Cape 
Barrow. Chipman completed this by May 20. 

After returning from the Croker River survey I made a trip into 
the Bathurst Inlet region to investigate the occurrence of ovibos, and 
other distributional problems of the fauna, as well as look up and assist 
the various surveying parties on their return. 

The snow was pretty soft by May 19, and I could not make the 
projected inland trip south of Arctic Sound. I met O'Neill and Cox 
in Bathurst Inlet, and returned to Cape Barrow with them, meeting 

* Corporal Bruce was the guest of the expedition while engaged in gathering 
evidence about the murder of two Roman Catholic priests two years before. 
See below. 



APPENDIX 755 

Chipman's party again on May 21. There was much water on the ice 
around Cape Barrow May 21, and much slushy snow and water until we 
got back to Tree Kiver. We remained at the island at the entrance of 
the harbor from May 25 until May 27 putting the umiak in shape 
and getting some dog pack-saddles made for Chipman. Chipman had 
met Mr. D'Arcy Arden from Great Bear Lake near the mouth of the 
Coppermine River early in the month, and had arranged to go back to 
Great Bear Lake overland with him. Chipman wanted to go out by 
the overland route because his work here was finished, and the prospect 
was good that he would get out a little sooner by Fort Norman and 
the Mackenzie River, and it was desirable to have news of the Southern 
party's condition and welfare get outside, in case the remainder of the 
party on the Alaska should be prevented by shipwreck or ice conditions 
from getting out by way of Point Barrow and Nome, Alaska. Chipman 
reached the end of the telegraph line at Peace River Crossing on August 
18, and Ottawa about the end of the month. 

Sending one large sled-load of specimens with some of our Eskimos 
directly from Port Epworth to Bernard Harbor via Cape Krusenstem, 
we started west May 27. We found that most of the melted snow water had 
drained off through cracks in the sea ice, making sled travel much better. 

The united sledge parties returned together along the coast as far 
as the mouth of the Coppermine River, which was reached on the 
morning of May 31. The river was open to its mouth, and was flooding 
the ice for about half a mile outside of its mouth. About 125 Eskimos 
were encamped a little west of the mouth of the river, on the southeast 
shore of Richardson Bay. Most of them were preparing to start packing 
overland to Dismal Lake and Dease River, although two or three 
families were intending to spend the summer hunting caribou around 
the Rae River, and three or four of the least enterprising families and 
some older people were intending to spend the summer spearing fish 
at the rapids of Bloody Fall, about nine miles from the mouth of the 
river. Chipman and Mr. Arden left the mouth of the Coppermine 
River on June 1, to pack across country to Great Bear Lake with some 
good pack dogs,* while the rest of our party started at the same time 
traveling over the ice along the coast to the station at Bernard Harbor. 
Considerable stretches of open water were seen south and west of 
Lambert Island June 5 and 6. The ice is said to be very thin there 
even in winter and opens up very early in the spring. Great numbers 
of Pacific and King Eider ducks were seen in the water and on the 
ice at the water's edge. We reached Bernard Harbor June 6. 

Wilkins, with the Eskimo Palaiyak, reached Bernard Harbor on 
June 15, 1916, having come by sled from the headquarters of the North- 
ern division of the expedition, near the Princess Royal Islands, Prince 
of Wales Strait; he brought news of the safety of the three vessels 

* For an account of traveling with pack dogs in summer from Coronation 
Gulf to Great Bear Lake, see "My Life With the Eskimo," Chapter XIII. 



756 APPENDIX 

of the Northern party, and of the progress of their operations up to 
May 5, 1916. At the time Wilkins left in May, Stefansson contem- 
plated carrying on his travels on the northern islands until 1917, the 
Polar Bear having been directed to move its base to Winter Harbor, 
Melville Island, to spend the winter of 1916-17, with the possibility of 
the party remaining in the Arctic until 1918. The Northern party 
was stated to have provisions for one or two years more, and were 
killing and storing away large numbers of caribou and ovibos on Mel- 
ville Island in the spring of 1916. Quite a number of their engaged 
western Eskimo hunters had been sent up to Melville Island early in 
the spring to shoot game for the party's meat supply. 

The remainder of June and the early part of July were spent in 
completing collections in the vicinity of Bernard Harbor, and assembling 
and packing specimens, stores and equipment for shipment out of the 
Arctic. Space had to be economized on the Alaska going out, as far 
as Herschel Island, as we had to bring out twenty-seven people, viz., 
eleven white men, including six members of the scientific staff, a crew 
of three, and two members of the Koyal Northwest Mounted Police; 
fourteen Eskimo employees, seven men, three women, and four children ; 
and two Eskimos held by the Mounted Police for homicide. In addi- 
tion to this we had to take the Eskimos' personal camp gear and dogs, 
stores for paying off native employees at Baillie Island and Herschel 
Island, and enough reserve provisions to provide for the wintering of 
as many men as might remain with the Alaska to take care of the vessel 
and bring her out the next year in case we should be prevented by ice 
conditions from sailing from Dolphin and Union Strait to Nome in 
the summer and autumn of 1916. I also thought it necessary, for the 
same reason, to keep the skin umiak, two sleds, and two teams of dogs 
on board at least as far as Point Barrow, Alaska. 

In September, 1915, Corporal W. V. Bruce, K. N. W. M. P., came 
in from Herschel Island, on the return trip of the Alaska^ to work on 
the case of the disappearance of Father Rouvier, O. M. I., and Father 
LeRoux, O. M. I., from the Mission at Fort Norman, who had gone 
into the country northeast of Great Bear Lake in 1913, and had not 
been heard of since. Corporal Bruce had spent the winter working 
on the case, and with the assistance of various members of the expe- 
dition, gained considerable information and recovered a quantity of 
the personal effects of the missing fathers as well as some property 
which presumably belonged to Messrs. Radford and Street, who were 
killed by Eskimos in Bathurst Inlet in 1912. In May, 1916, Inspector 
Charles D. LaNauze, of the Great Bear Lake patrol, came down to 
Coronation Gulf* with a party from his winter quarters near old 
Fort Confidence on Dease River, and in the same month the police 

♦Inspector LaNauze had for servants and guides the family of Ilavinirk 
who had been in the service of the Stefansson-Anderson Expedition, 1908-1912. 
See index of "My Life With the Eskimo," for references to Ilavinirk. 



APPENDIX 757 

made prisoners of the two Eskimos, Sinnisiak and Uluksak * who had 
killed the priests. Both prisoners were taken to Bernard Harbor and 
in July we took Inspector LaNauze and Corporal Bruce out as passen- 
gers on the Ala-filfa from Bernard Harbor to Herschel Island. All 
relations of the Koyal Northwest Mounted Police with the expedition 
have been most cordial, and while with the expedition, both Inspector 
LaNauze and Corporal Bruce did everything they could as volunteer 
assistants in whatever work was going on. 

The Alasha left a large permanent cache of provisions in the house 
at Bernard Harbor, in case any parties should come down from the 
Northern section during the next winter. The house was left in cus- 
tody of the Rev. H. Girling, who wintered near Clifton Point with 
the mission schooner Athon, and intended to establish a mission station 
at Bernard Harbor in the summer of 1916.** 

The Hudson's Bay Company's schooner Fort Macpherson, with Mr. 
W. G. Phillips in charge, sailed from Herschel Island July 28, 1916, 
after our arrival there, for the purpose of establishing a permanent 
trading post for the company at Bernard Harbor. 

The Alaska^ with all members of the Southern party on board, left 
our headquarters for the past two years, at Bernard Harbor, July 13, 
1916. We reached Pierce Point Harbor about midnight on July 23, 
and Herschel Island July 28. 

[At Baillie and Herschel Islands the Eskimo members of the party 
were discharged. The Alasha reached Nome August 15, 1916.] 

The extensive collections made by the party in geology and mineral- 
ogy, ethnology, and archaeology, terrestrial and marine biology, botany 
and photography, and our records and papers were landed safely at 
Nome. As it was considered much safer to ship the results of our 
three years' work out by the regular freight and passenger service from 
Nome than to risk taking them through the north Pacific to Victoria 
on a small schooner like the Alasha in the autumn season, all the col- 
lections, scientific instruments, and what equipment was worth shipping 
back, was trans-shipped to Seattle on the steamship Northwestern, of 
the Alaska Steamship Company. The members of the party also took 
passage to Seattle on the same steamer, leaving Nome August 27, and 
reaching Seattle via the inside passage on September 11, 1916. All 
collections had been safely received in Ottawa by the end of October, 
1916. 

♦Uluksak had spent the summer 1910 with Stefansson's party on the 
Coppermine River and Dismal Lake. 

** Eventually this house became the permanent station of the Anglican 
Mission, being presented to them, along with the stores, by the Government. 



WHO^S WHO OF THE EXPEDITION 

Andersen, Karsten (Charlie). See Exploratory Party, 1916 and 1917. 

Anderson, Alexander. First officer on Karluh. After the wreck of the 
Karluh, he was sent towards shore in command of a party that was 
lost on the ice. 

Anderson, Eudolph M. See Scientific Staff. 

Andreasen, Ole. See Exploratory Party, 1914 and 1915. 

AsASELA, James (Jim Fiji). See Polar Bear, 1916 and 1917. 

Baur, William J. (Levi). Steward; see Kellett Base, 1914, 1915, and 
Polar Bear, 1916 and 1917. 

B'arker, Charles. Second Mate on the Karluh. Was a member of the 
first party sent towards shore after the Karluk sank. The party of 
four were lost on the ice before reaching Wrangel Island. 

Bartlett, Egbert A. See Commanders of Ships. 

Bernard, Peter. See Commanders of Ships. 

Beuohat, Henri. See Scientific Staff. 

Binder, Otto. See Ohallenge, 1917. 

Blue, Daniel Wallace. Engineer of the Mary Sachs. Died at the 
Baillie Islands, May 2, 1915. 

Bolt, Ikey. Eskimo; see Alasha and North Star, 1914, 1915. 

Brady, John. Sailor. Lost on the ice near Wrangel Island after the 
sinking of the Karluh, while a member of the first shore-going party. 

Breddy, G. Fireman on the Karluh. Was a member of the party that 
reached Wrangel Island after the Karluh sank, but committed sui- 
cide there the summer of 1914. 

Brooks, Charles. Steward on Alasha, 1913. 

Castel, Aarnout. See Commanders of Ships or Divisions. 

Chafe, Ernest F. Messroom boy on the Karluh. A member of the 
party that reached Wrangel Island and among the survivors who 
were rescued the fall of 1914. 

Chipman, Kenneth G. See Scientific Staff. 

Cox, John E. See Scientific Staff. 

Crawford, J. E. See Mar2f Sachs, 1913, and Exploratory Party, 1914 
and 1915. 

Donohue, Peter. See Polar Bear, 1917. 

Emiu (Split-the-Wind). Cabin Boy; see Polar Bear, 1916, and Ex- 
ploratory Party, 1916 and 1917. 

Eskimos. Many unnamed. 

Gonzales, Henry. See Commanders of Ships. 

758 



APPENDIX 759 

GUMAER, G. G. Accompanied Storkerson on exploratory trip of 1918. 

Hadley, John. See Commanders of Ships. 

HoFF^ J. E. Engineer of Alaska, 1916. 

Illun. Eskimo. Member of Polar Bear crew. 

Jenness, Diamond. See Scientific Staff. 

JoHANSEN, Frits. See Scientific Staff. 

Jones, J. J. Engineer of the Polar Bear; died suddenly of heart dis- 
ease, 1916. 

KiLiAN, Herman. See Polar Bear, 1916 and 1917. 

KiLL4N, Martin. See Polar Bear, 1916 and 1917; also Exploratory 
Party, 1918. 

King, A. Sailor. Was a member of the party that was lost on the ice 
while trying to reach Wrangel Island after the sinking of the 
KarluJc. 

Knight, E. Lorne. See Polar Bear, 1916; and Exploratery Party, 1917 
and 1918. 

Leffingwell, Ernest de Koven. Guest; see Mary Sachs, 1913. 

Lopez, Peter. See North Star, 1916, etc. 

Lopez, Mrs. Peter. See North Star, 1916, etc. 

Mackay, a. Forbes. See Scientific Staff. 

McCoNNELL, Burt M. See Scientific Staff. 

McKiNLAY, William Laird. See Scientific Staff. 

Malloch, George. See Scientific Staff. 

Mamen, Bjarne. See Scientific Staff. 

Masik, August. See Man-y Sachs, 1917, and Exploratory Party, 1918. 

Maurer^ Frederick W. A member of the party that reached Wrangel 
Island after the sinking of the Karluk, and among the survivors 
who were rescued the fall of 1914. 

Mike. Eskimo. See Alaska and North Star, 1914. 

Morris, S. Stanley. Sailor. Lost on the ice near Wrangel Island after 
the sinking of the Karluh. 

Murray, James. See Scientific Staff. 

Nahmens, Otto. See Commanders of Ships. 

Natkusiak. Eskimo. See Ships' Crews and Exploratory Parties. 

NoiCE, Harold. See Exploratory Party, 1916 and 1917. 

Norem, Andrew (Andre). Steward on Mary Sachs. Committed sui- 
cide April 16, 1914. 

Olesen, Louis. See Alaska, 1913, 1914, 1915. 

O'^N'eill, John J. See Scientific Staff. 

Palaiyak. Eskimo. See Ships' Crews. 

PiKALU. Eskimo. See Ships' Crews. 

Seymour, William. Second officer of Polar Bear. See 1916, 1917. 

Shannon, Anthony. See Polar Bear, 1917 and 1918. 

Stefansson, Yilhjalmur. See Scientific Staff. 

Storkerson, Storker T. See Commanders of Ships or of Divisions. 



760 APPENDIX 

Storkerson, Mrs. S. T. See Kellett Base, 1915 ; Melville Island, 1916. 

Storkerson. Two daughters. 

Sweeney, Daniel. See Commanders of Ships. 

Templeman, Robert. Steward. A member of the party that reached 

"Wrangel Island after the sinking of the Karluk, and among the 

survivors who were rescued. 
Thomsen, Charles (Karl). See Kellett Base, 1914; Exploratory Party, 

1915, 1916. Died the winter of 1916-17 while crossing Banks Island. 
Thomsen, Mrs. Charles. See Kellett Base. 
Thomsen, Annie. Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Thomsen. 
Ulipsinna. Eskimo. See Polar Bear and Exploratory Party, 1917. 
VoLKi, Ered. See Polar Bear, 1917-18. 
WiLKiNS, George H. See Scientific Staff. 
Williams, H. Sailor. One of the survivors of the Karluk who were 

rescued from Wrangel Island the fall of 1914. 
Williamson, Robert J. Second engineer on Karluk. A member of the 

party that reached Wrangel Island after the sinking of the Karluk, 

and one of the survivors who were rescued that faU. 



SCIENTIFIC STAFI' 

Unless otherwise stated, eacli man was a citizen of the country of his 
birth. Those whose birthplace is not mentioned were native-born 
Canadians. 

Anderson, Rudolph M. Second-in-command of the expedition. Zoolo- 
gist. Born American, but has since become naturalized Canadian. 
A graduate of and three years post-graduate study at the University 
of Iowa, and a member of the Geological Survey of Canada. He 
accompanied the author on his expedition of 1908-12. Four winters 
in Arctic before beginning of this expedition. 

Beuchat, Henri. Anthropologist, of Paris. Studied at the Sorbonne 
and later attained distinction as a writer on American archseology 
and ethnology. He was lost on the ice near Wrangel Island after 
the sinking of the Karluk. 

Chipman, Kenneth Gordon. Topographer. A graduate of the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology, and had had several years' experi- 
ence in the topographical division of the Geological Survey of 
Canada. 

Cox, John Raffles. Assistant topographer. After graduating from 
McGill University, he had been a member of the topographical 
division of the Geological Survey of Canada. After the return of 
the Southern Section in 1916 he served in the World War. 

Jenness, Dmmond. Anthropologist. Rhodes Scholar at Oxford from 
New Zealand; before joining the expedition he had had field ex- 
perience in ethnology in New Guinea. After the Southern Section 
returned south, he served in the World War. 

JoHANSEN, Frits. Botanist and marine biologist. Born in Denmark. 
Had formerly been with Mylius Erichsen in East Greenland and 
had done entomological and other scientific work for the Department 
of Agriculture at Washington. 

Mackay, Alister Forbes. Surgeon, of Scotland. Served in the British 
navy after graduation from the University of Edinburgh, and later 
accompanied Shackleton to the Antarctic. He was lost on the ice 
near Wrangel Island after the sinking of the Karluk. 

McCoNNELL, Burt M. Meteorologist. American. He accompanied the 
author ashore from the Karluk and remained with the expedition 
during the winter 1913-14. After severing his connection with the 
expedition, he went to Alaska and assisted in the rescue of the men 

761 



762 APPENDIX 

from Wrangel Island. Later served in the War, in the United 
States Air Service. 

McKiNLAY, William Laird. Magnetician, of Scotland. After gradua- 
tion from the University of Glasgow, was instructor in mathematics 
in Shawland's Academy of Glasgow, and during spare time assisted 
Dr. W. S. Bruce, of the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory. 
After the sinking of the Karluh, he was among the survivors who 
were rescued from Wrangel Island. He returned to Scotland and 
served through most of the Great War. 

Kalloch, George S. Geologist. Had been a graduate student at Yale 
and was a member of the Geological Survey of Canada. He was 
an expert on coal deposits and strati<^graphy generally. He died in 
Wrangel Island the spring of 1914 after the sinking of the Karluh. 

Mamen, Bjarne. Assistant to the geologist (Mr. Malloch), of Chris- 
tiania, Norway. Had been with the Norwegian- Spitsbergen Expe- 
dition, and later had worked in the forests of Biritish Columbia. 
He was a member of the party that reached Wrangel Island after 
the sinking of the Karluh, but died there the spring of 1914. 

Murray, James. Oceanographer, of Glasgow. Had worked for many 
years with Sir John Murray, one of the world's greatest oceanog- 
raphers. He had been with Shackleton in the Antarctic and after- 
wards had been biologist of the boundary survey of Colombia. He 
was lost on the ice near Wrangel Island after the sinking of the 
Karluh. 

O'Neill, John J. Geologist. Had specialized in pre-Cambrian geology 
and in copper-bearing rocks. A graduate of McGill University and 
later studied at Yale. 

Stepansson, Vilhjalmur. Commander of the expedition, anthropol- 
ogist, geographer. Graduate of the University of Iowa, three years' 
post-graduate study at Harvard. Two previous arctic expeditions — 
1906-07 and 1908-12. Five winters in the Arctic before beginning 
this expedition. 

WiLKiNS, George H. Photographer, of Australia. Studied at Adelaide 
University and before joining the expedition had been a photo- 
graphic correspondent in the Balkan War. He returned south in 
1916 and served with the Australian flying forces during the two 
remaining years of the War. He was awarded the Military Cross 
and was promoted Captain. 



COMMANDEES OF SHIPS OR DIVISIONS 
OF THE EXPEDITION 

Anderson, R. M. See Scientific Staff. 

Bartlett, Robert Abraham. Born in Newfoundland, but naturalized 
American. Had been with Peary on two expeditions, spending 
altogether three winters in polar regions. Was Master of Peary's 
Roosevelt, 1908-09. Master of Karluh, 1913-14. 

Bernard, Peter. American citizen of Canadian birth (Prince Edward 
Island). Had followed sea around Nome for many years. Had 
been Captain and owner of the Mary Sachs before she was purchased 
by the expedition. 

Castel, Aarnout. Born in Holland and a graduate of a naval school 
there. Had been with whaling ships and was personally known to 
author since their meeting at Herschel Island, 1906. Master of 
North Star. Later in charge at Cape Kellett and Master of Chal- 
lenge. 

Chipman, K. G. See Scientific Staff. 

Gonzales, Henry. Born in Portugal. Had been whaler in Arctic for 
many years. Was First Of&cer of Polar Bear when she was pur- 
chased by the expedition. Master Polar Bear, 1915-17. 

Hadley, John. Born at Canterbury, England. During a varied career 
he had been an officer in the Navies both of China and Chile. 
Petty Officer on the U. S. Revenue Cutter Thetis in 1889 when 
she went to Arctic to determine the location of Herschel Island. 
Had spent more than twenty-five years in the Arctic and personally 
known to author since 1908. Was member Karluh crew. Later 
Second Officer (1915-17) and Master (1917-18) of Polar Bear. 
Died in San Francisco of influenza, 1918. 

Nahmens, Otto. American. Had followed sea around Nome and had 
also been a miner there. Master of Alaska, 1913-14. 

Pedersen, Theodore (C. T.). Bom in Denmark, naturalized American. 
Had been whaler in Arctic waters about 10 years. Selected Karluh 
as best available ship for expedition. Master of Karluh, 1913, on 
voyage San Francisco to Victoria, British Columbia, and in charge 
of her during repairing at Esquimalt Navy Yard. In 1914 as 
Master of Herman picked up Captain Bartlett at Emma Harbor 
and thus assisted in rescue of Karluh survivors. 

Storkerson, Storker T. Born in north of Norway. Associated with 
author first when both were members of the Leffingwell-Mikkelsen 

763 



764 APPENDIX 

Polar Expedition, 1906-07, where Storkerson was First Officer. Was 
for a time member of the Stefansson-Anderson Expedition of 
1908-12. Had already lived in Arctic seven years before he joined 
the Canadian Arctic Expedition. Was ranking member of expe- 
dition after departure of Wilkins (1916). In charge ice drift, 1918. 

Sweeney, Daniel. American. Had been whaler in Arctic for many 
years. Master of Alaska, 1914-16. 

Wilkins, G. H. See Scientific Staff. 



1913: 



KarluJc : 

Barker, Bartlett, Beuchat, Brady, Breddy, Chafe, Hadley, Jen- 
ness, King, Mackay, llalloch, Mamen, Maurer, McConnell, 
McKinlay, Morris, Murray, Stefansson, Templeman, Wilkins, 
Williams, Williamson, seven Eskimos. 

Alaska: 

Anderson, Brooks, Cox, Johansen, Nahmens, Olesen, O'Neill. 

Mary 8achs: 

Bernard, Chipman, Crawford, Leffingwell (guest), Norem, 
Thomsen, Thomsen (Mrs.), Thomsen (Annie), one Eskimo. 



191J^: 



Exploratory Party: 

Andreasen, Bernard, Castel, Crawford, Johansen, McConneU, 

Stefansson, Storkerson, Wilkins. 
Alaska and North Star: 

Anderson, Bolt (Ikey), Chipman, Cox, Johansen, Mike, Olesen, 

O'Neill, Palaiyak, Sullivan, Sweeney. 
Kellett Base: 

Baur, Bernard, Crawford, Thomsen and family. 



1916. 



Kellett Base: 

Baur, Bernard, Crawford, Natkusiak, Storkerson (Mrs.), Thom- 
sen, Thomsen (Mrs.), Wilkins. 

Exploratory Party: 

Andreasen, Crawford, Natkusiak, Stefansson, Storkerson, 
Thomsen, Wilkins. 

Alaska: 

Anderson, Castel, Cox, Johansen, Olesen, O'Neill, SuUivan, 
several Eskimos. 



APPENDIX 765 

1916: 

North Star: 

Castel, Lopez, Lopez (Mrs.), Natkusiak, Wilkins. 

Ma/ry Sachs: 

Bernard, Knight, Thomsen, Thomsen (Mrs.) and Family, four 
Eskimos. 

Polar Bear: 

Andersen, Asasela, Baur, Emiu, Gonzales, Hadley, Jones, 
Kilian, H., Kilian, M., Noice, Stefansson, Seymour, eight 
Eskimos. 

Exploratory Party: 

Andersen, Castel, Emiu, Kilian, H,, Kilian, M., Natkusiak, 
Noice, Stefansson, Storkerson, Thomsen, Wilkins. 

Hunting Party on Melville Island: 

Castel, Emiu, Lopez and wife, Natkusiak, Storkerson, wife, and 
two baby daughters, five other Eskimos. 

Alaska: 

Anderson, Castel, Cox, Hoff, Johansen, Olesen, O'Neill, Sulli- 
van, several Eskimos. 

1917: 

Exploratory Party: 

Andersen, Castel, Emiu, Illun, Knight, Natkusiak, Noice, 

Pikalu, Stefansson, Storkerson, Ulipsinna. 
Polar Bear: 

Asasela, Baur, Donohue, Gonzales, Gumaer, Hadley, Kilian, H., 

Kilian, M., Lopez, Seymour, Shannon, Storkerson, about ten 

Eskimos. 
Mary Sachs: 

Andersen, Binder, Castel, Masik. 
Challenge : 

Binder, Emiu, Knight, Masik, Noice, Stefansson. 

1917-1918: 

Polar Bear: 

Andersen, Baur, Castel, Donohue, Gumaer, Hadley, Kilian, H., 
Kilian, M., Knight, Masik, Shannon, Stefansson, Storkerson, 
Yolki, ten Eskimos. 

1918: 

Exploratory Party: 

Andersen, Castel, Emiu, Gumaer, Kilian, H., Kilian, M., 
Knight, Masik, Storkerson, Yolki, two Eskimos. 



INDEX 



Age of maturity among Eskimo women, 

75-79. 
Airplanes, plan for rescuing author's party 

by, 383. 
Akeley, Carl, on eating habits of Africans, 

356. 
Alarm clocks, usefulness of, in arctic work, 

367. 
Alaska, schooner, 27; arrival of, at Col- 

linson Point, 66; scientific information 

gained by party on, 275; found at 

Herschel Island, 388 ; author's books on, 

463-464; reported on way home, 599. 
Alaska, theory of ice navigation, 44-45; 

successful following of, by Alaska and 

Mary Sachs, 66. 
Alfred, Cape, 187, 190, 220; expedition 

northwest from (1915), 294-299 ; Wil- 

kins' base near, 447. 
Alingnak, Eskimo with author, 450, 458- 

459. 
Allan, Alexander, captain of El Sueno, 

392-393. 
Allanak, Minto Inlet Eskimo, 437-438. 
Alunak, Copper Eskimo, 422. 
Amauliktok, island of, 57; meaning of 

word, 57. 
Amber-colored glasses for arctic work, 

200-201. 
Ammunition, carried on northward ice 

trip, 163; accident to author from de- 
fective, 406-407; carried by author in 

expedition of 1916, 494. 
Amund Ringnes Island, landing on, 525. 
Amundsen, finding of Northwest Passage 

by, 7; use of skis by, 164; snowhouse 

building learned by men with, 176 n. ; 

dogs bought by, and used by author, 180. 
Anchors found at Mercy Bay, 362. 
Anderson, "Charlie," goes north with 

author in 1916, 494-495 ; first seal shot 

by, 512; discovery of Meighen Island 

by, 518; suffers from snowblindness. 

525-526 ; develops felon on hand, 567 ; 

attacked by scurvy, 610-611. 
Ander5:on, John, first officer of Karluk, 34 ; 

ending of, 721. 



Anderson, Rudolph M., 27, 91 ; divergent 
views of author and, on survey of Mac- 
kenzie delta, 96-98; left in charge of 
CoUinson Point base, 98; stand taken 
by, at CoUinson Point, against author's 
plans, 111-122; letter written to author 
by, and its subsequent history, 112-114; 
author's instructions sent back to, by 
support party, 157-160; reasons for 
disobedience of author's orders by, 271- 
272; failure of, to report author's in- 
structions to Ottawa Government, 382; 
reports of, give impression that no com- 
munications could reach author in Banks 
Island, 391 ; supplies sent by author to 
(1915), 392; account of surrendering of 
North Star by, to Wilkins, 446-447 ; in 
the Alaska, on way home, 599 ; summary 
of work of southern section of expe- 
dition, conducted by, 736-757. 

Andreasen, Martin, captain of North Star, 
71, 101 ; theory of arctic navigation 
practiced by, 101-103 ; attitude at time 
of CoUinson Point difficulty, 117; sup- 
port given author by, 138 ; a believer in 
survival of author's party, 380 ; triumph 
of, on author's arrival at Herschel Island, 
388. 

Andreasen, Ole, volunteer with author's 
advance party, 140; member of author's 
final party on ice journey northward, 
163 ; dread of meat diet by, 190 ; author's 
expression of gratitude to and apprecia- 
tion of, 236 ; lonesomeness unknown to, 
250; and story of wolves on Banks 
Island, 253-254; chosen for winter ice 
party of 1915, 294; end of connection 
with author's activities, 396 ; experience 
in eating bear liver, 481 ; buys Gladiator 
of Captain Lane, 599 ; in charge of trad- 
ing post at Shingle Point, 675, 676. 

Angutitsiak, Point Hope Eskimo, 79. 

Animal life, in arctic regions, 17-19; 
question concerning, in arctic waters, 
132-136; on Melville Island, 344-345. 
See also Birds, Ovibos, Seals, etc. 

Antarctic, comparison between Arctic and, 



767 



768 



INDEX 



35 ; use of skis in the, 165 ; snowhouses 

not built by explorers of, 175-176 ; 

difference between seals of, and of Arctic, 

309-310, 502. 
Anthony, Harry, friend at Rampart House, 

683. 
Arctic regions, mistaken conception of, 

7-8 ; real character of, 8-9 ; justification 

for exploration of, 73-74; region of 

maximum inaccessibility in the, 731-736. 
Arden, D'Arcy, Chipman's trip overland 

with, 754. 
Armstrong Point, winter quarters of Polar 

Bear near, 401 . 
Arnaretuak, handsome Eskimo woman, 

468. 
Asasela, James (Jim Fiji), sailor on Polar 

Bear, 395 ; with Gonzales' party in visit 

to Minto Inlet Eskimos, 430-437; life 

history of, 666-667. 
Asatsiak, Point Hope Eskimo, 28, 56, 79. 
Atkon, Church of England schooner, 388: 

voyage of, to Cape Bathurst, 393, 394; 

delay caused by lack of promptness in 

arriving, 394. 
Atlantic theory of ice navigation, 44-45; 

followed by author in the Karluk, 48. 
Auktok method of seal hunting, 305-309. 
Auroras in the North, 415. 
Australia, lessons in eating habits from, 

356. 
Axel Heiberg Islands, glaciers in, 12. 

Bacon, Fort, new Hudson's Bay post, 390. 

Baffin Island, glaciers in, 12. 

Baillie Islands, Eskimos of peculiar type 
at, 468-469. 

Banks Island, animal life in, 18 ; a summer 
of hunting in, 242-249 ; intimate knowl- 
edge of, acquired, 249 ; beauty and 
homelikeness of, 258 ; the Mary Sachs at, 
266-277 ; the autumn hunt in, 278-284 ; 
first crossing of (1915), 364-373; the 
crossing to, winter of 1915-16, 443-445 ; 
trip along north coast of, 472-486 ; 
differences between author's map of, 
and previous ones, 473 ; effects of wave 
action on beaches at, 510; return to, 
on homeward trip in 1917, 636. 

Barker, second mate of Karluk, loss of, 721. 

Barren Ground, a libelous name, 16-17. 

Barrow, Point. See Point Barrow. 

Barry Island, exploration of, 749. 

Barter Island, stranding of Polar Bear at 
(1917), 671-672. 

Bartlett, Captain "Bob," 27; reasons 
for engaging, and justification of choice. 



47-48 ; news of, received at Cape Kel- 
lett, 270 ; point of view of, in account of 
last voyage of Karluk, 703 ; handling of 
Karluk party by, on last voyage, 703-730. 

Bathurst, Cape, stop at, in 1915, 387. 

Baur, W. J. ("Levi"), 142; dramatic 
meeting with, at Cape Kellett, 268-269 ; 
steward on Polar Bear, 395 ; record kept 
by, of caribou killed on Victoria Island 
(1915), 402. 

Beaches, raised, 509-510. 

Bear, U. S. Revenue Cutter, 41-42 ; at- 
tempts rescue of Karluk survivors, 725. 

Bears, characteristics of polar, 155-157; 
hair of, for fuel, 196 ; first encounter 
with, after leaving Alaska, 211-216; 
meat of, as food, 211-212 ; motions of, 
as guide to hunters, 289 ; shooting of, 
in Banks Island, 289-290; catching of 
seals by, 303-304 ; eyesight of, 307 ; 
food habits of polar, 354 ; rare north of 
75° N. latitude, 356; hunting of, with 
dogs, 421, 529-530; question of poison- 
ous character of liver of polar, 479-482 ; 
in Lougheed Island, 622. 

Beaufort Sea, exploration of, a main task 
of expedition, 97 ; eddy in the, 185 n. ; 
Storkerson's account of drifting in the, 
689-703. 

Beaufort Sea theory of ice navigation, 44- 
45. 

BeUefs of Eskimos, 107, 409-415, 439-442. 

Belvedere, steam whaler, 100; Christmas 
(1913) spent on, 101. 

Bernard, Joseph F., captain of Teddy Bear, 
378, 739. 

Bernard, Captain Peter, 27 ; support given 
author by, at time of Collinson Point 
difficulty, 116, 121 ; further support 
given author, 139 ; special qualifications 
for arctic work, 140; serious accident 
to, 144 ; island named for, 227 ; the 
meeting with, at Cape Kellett, 267-268 ; 
winter occupations of, at Cape Kellett, 
291-292 ; reported death of, 387 ; as a 
sledge maker, 399 ; attempted trip of, 
from Cape Kellett to Liddon Gulf, 599 ; 
tragic story of death of, 646-654. 

Bernard Harbor, named for Captain 
Joseph Bernard, 378, 739. . 

Bernard Island, discovery of, 227 ; map ' 
made of, by Storkerson, 235 ; record 
placed in beacon on, 237. 

Bernier, J. E., depot of, discovered at Win- 
ter Harbor, 576-578 ; record of, found 
on Melville Island, 624-625 ; house of, 
near Parry's Rock, 632. 



INDEX 



769 



Beuchat, anthropologist, 51, 139; loss of, 
710. 

Binder, Otto, found by author at Cape 
Kellett (1917), 645; partnership formed 
between Noice, Carroll, and, 669. 

Birds, in arctic regions, 17-18 ; on Banks 
Island, 237-238, 365 ; eyesight of, 307 ; 
north of Cape Isachsen, 518 ; in 
Lougheed Island, 622 ; seen by Storker- 
son's drifting party, 699-700. 

"Blond Eskimos" of Prince Albert Sound, 
400, 468, 469-470. 

Blood revenge among Eskimos, 566. 

Blood soup, preparation of, 313 n. 

Blue, Daniel, death of, 378, 750. 

Boas, Dr., discoveries by, 422. 

Bodfish, Captain, 47. 

Books, carried by author, 463-465 ; left by 
author's party in cairn on Banks Island, 
638. 

Boots, for dogs, 294, 352-353 ; seal hides 
used for soles of, 352 ; the best, for arctic 
travel, 604. 

Borden, Sir Robert, interest of, in explora- 
tion of Beaufort Sea, 97. 

Borden Island, discovery of, 324-330 ; 
crossing from Lougheed Island to (1916), 
548 ; frequented by caribou, 555. 

Bowhead whales, school of, 387-388. 

Breddy, member of Karluk crew, 719. 

Brock, R. W., Chief of Geological Survey, 
116 ; faith of, in author, 380. 

Brockie, police constable, 677, 681 ; es- 
cort of author, on way from Herschel 
Island to Fort Yukon, 681, 683. 

Brooks, Charles, steward of Alaska, 95. 

Brooks, Winthrop S., on Polar Bear in the 
Arctic, 99. 

Brower, Charles D., friend at Cape 
Smythe, 36 ; reception of author's party 
by, at Point Barrow, 68 ; sledge built 
by, 68 ; knowledge of Eskimo language 
possessed by, 105 ; cited on action of 
ice on Point Barrow beach, 509-510; 
quoted on case of whalers caught in 
ice at Point Barrow, 581. 

Bruce, Corporal W. V., 753-754, 755. 

Bruce, Dr. W. S., oceanograpber, 30; ad- 
vice of, on sounding wire, 171. 

Burial customs of Eskimos, 257. 

Burke, Dr. Grafton, 470, 680, 683 ; arch- 
deacon Stuck' s account of meeting with 
author and, 684-685. 



Cadzow, Dan, at Rampart House, 683. 
Camsell, Julian S., Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany manager, 390. 



Cape Smythe, visit to, in 1913, 35-40; 

return to, 68. 
Caribou, in arctic regions, 17 ; winter 
habits of, 18 ; killing of, by wolves, 
227 ; found on Norway Island, 228- 
229 ; best parts for eating, 231 ; Eski- 
mos' tastes regarding, 232 ; Eskimo 
method of hunting, 241 ; hunting of, 
in Banks Island, 242-249; the fat of, 
246-247 ; persecuted by mosquitoes, 
247 ; quality of meat, for eating, 248 ; 
action of, when hunted by wolves, 
248-249 ; autumn hunt of, and methods 
employed, in Banks Island, 281-283 ; 
eyesight of, 307; on Melville Island 
coast, 345 ; great danger from dogs 
chasing, 368-369 ; ways of judging age, 
sex, and size of, 369-370 ; inuksui 
method of hunting, 401 ; on Victoria 
Island, 401 ; flourish better the farther 
north they go, 475; ebb and flow in 
numbers of, 475-476 ; author's at- 
tempts to get specimens to bring home, 
544-545 ; in Borden Island, 555 ; game 
between fox and young of, 624. 

Carroll, A. A., old friend at Cape Bathurst, 
668-669 ; partnership between Noice, 
Binder, and, 669. 

Castel, Aarnout, sailor on Belvedere, 
138, 139-140; volunteers for author's 
advance party, 140 ; loss of, to north- 
ward expedition, 150-151 ; goes north 
with author in 1916, 474, 494-405; 
becomes captious about food, 504-505 ; 
sent back to Polar Bear, 505-507 ; pro- 
gram of work laid out for, 506-508 ; 
failure of author's party to find depot 
to be erected by, 552, 555; Lougheed 
Island first discovered by, 563 ; report 
from, received at Melville Island, 563- 
565; leaves for Cape Grassy, 590; 
tracing of Bernard and Thomson's 
movements by, 649-653 ; placed in 
command of Challenge, 665 ; repair of 
Mary Sachs by, 655-657 ; made first 
ofl&cer of Polar Bear, 670; in Storker- 
son's support party in 1918, 696. 

Castel Bay, discovery of, 474-475 ; abun- 
dance of game at, 476. 

Catholic priests, killed by Eskimos, 432, 
755-756. 

Challenge, schooner, bought by Crawford 
and Wittenberg, 598 ; bought by au- 
thor, 663 ; rescue of author's party by, 
at Cape Kellett, 663 ; overtaking of 
Polar Bear by, 664 ; sale of, to Noice, 
Binder, and Carroll, 669. 



770 



INDEX 



Charms, Eskimo, 411-415. 
Chewing-gum, use of, by Eskimos, 564- 

565. 
Child-bearing, Eskimo beliefs relating 
to, 410, 412 ; deaths among Eskimo 
women from, 423. 

Chipman, K. G., in charge of the Sachs, 
87 ; in winter quarters at Collinson 
Point, 91 ; report made to author by, 
91-93; topographical work accom- 
plished by, 109, 110, 111, 737. 

Chronometers, failure of, at Mercy Bay, 
361. 

Climate of arctic regions, 13-16. 

Clothing, for arctic travel, 603-607 ; how 
to deal with hoar frost in, 606 ; drying 
of wet, 607 ; found in Kellett's depot 
at Dealy Island, 630-631. 

Coal, in Amund Ringnes Island, 525 ; 
on Melville Island, 563, 564; at Peddie 
Point, 568; in Lougheed Island, 620; 
in Banks Island, 641. 

Cochrane, Captain, of cutter Bear, 725. 

Cold in arctic regions, 13-15 ; degrees of, 
608-609. 

Colds, catching of, on return to civiliza- 
tion, 676. 

College men in arctic regions, 100. 

Collinson, Eskimo who remenibered, 422- 
423. 

Collinson Point, journey from Point Bar- 
row to, 75-90; winter quarters at, 91- 
95 ; threatened mutiny at, 111-122. 

Compass, use of magnetic, 222-223. 

Cope Antarctic Expedition, 73 n. 

Copper, found at Moore Bay, 748 ; at 
Banks Peninsula, 749 ; in Bathurst 
Inlet, 753. 

Copper Eskimos, visit to, 416-426 ; un- 
fortunate experience of Captain Gon- 
zales with, 430-437. 

Cornwall, J. K., head of fur-trading com- 
pany, 668-669. 

Coronation Gulf, region of, as a hunting 
country, 245 ; Hudson's Bay Company, 
post on south shore of, 390 n. 

Cottle, S. F., whaling captain, 46, 100, 
101, 379, 388; navigation of the Ruby 
by, 102; friendly letter of warning 
from, 117; view taken by, of author's 
projected ice trip, 131. 

Cottle, Mrs., 101, 102. 

Cox, J. R., topographer, 111 ; work done 
by, 737, 742-743, 753. 

Cram, Mr. and Mrs. G. W., school 
teachers at Cape Smythe, 36. 

Crawford, J. R., engineer of Mary Sachs, 



99, 267, 270 ; member of support party, 
139 ; replaces Captain Bernard on 
northward journey, 144 ; attitude 
toward meat diet, 294 ; discharge of, 
as engineer of North Star, 447 ; expe- 
rience in eating bear liver, 481 ; schooner 
Challenge bought by, 598 ; arrival at 
Cape Kellett in 1917, 663. 

Crevasse, author's fall into, 500-501. 

Croker River, exploration of, 752. 

Cross Island, 45, 48, 82. 

Crown Prince Gustav Sea, non-existence 
of, 517. 

Curls rare among Eskimos, 467. 

Current in Beaufort Sea, 185 n. ; Storker- 
son's trip of investigation, and conclu- 
sions arrived at, 689-703. 

Curtis, Sir Henry, "Ingoldsby Legends" 
carried by, 464-465. 

Darkness, the winter, in arctic regions, 
22-24. 

Darnley Bay, exploration and survey of, 
743. 

Davis, John, 2. 

Dawson, temperature at, 14. 

Dealy Island, finding of Kellett's depot 
on, 628-631. 

Deans Dundas Bay, 398 ; sealing camp 
north of, 408. 

Deer Bay, Isachsen's, 618. 

De Long, Emma, "Voyage of the Jean- 
nette" by, cited, 69. 

De Long, Lieutenant, voyage of, supple- 
mented by Nansen's, 673. 

Dpming, E. W., letters from family of, 391. 

De Salis Bay, arrival at (1914), 288. 

Desbarats, G. J., telegram from, 72 ; 
faith of, in author, 380-381 ; McCon- 
nell's plan of rescue discouraged by, 
384 ; understanding of, that no com- 
munications could reach author in 
Banks Island, 391. 

Deserts, sea, 613, 735-736. 

Dietetics. See Eating and Food. 

Dimples among Eskimos, 467. 

Diseases of dogs, 293, 427. 

Dismal Lake, divergent views of, 21-22. 

Dison, Joseph, member of Polar^ Bear 
party, 99. 

Dog-Rib Indians, 78. 

Dogs, experiments in feeding of, 61-63 ; 
harnessing of, 147, 180; action of, on 
moving sea ice, 148 ; credit given by au- 
thor to his, 180 ; breeds of, 180 ; reasons 
for unfavorable opinion of Eskimo, 
180-182; behavior of author's, 197; 



INDEX 



771 



loads carried and good work done by 
author's, 236 ; kinds of mysterious 
sickness of, as evidenced at Cape Kel- 
lett, 293 ; boots for, to cure sore feet, 
294 ; usefulness in locating seals be- 
neath ice, 304 ; troubles with sore feet, 
352-353 ; used primarily by Eskimos 
for hunting, 420-421 ; numbers of, 
owned by Eskimo families, 421-422 ; 
chasing of caribou by, and resulting 
danger, 368-369 ; strange diseases of, 
427 ; danger of trusting to, to find the 
way, 458-460 ; death of one of author's 
(Jack) , 513 ; used in hunting bears, 
529-530. 

Dolphin and Union Straits, Hudson's Bay 
Company post on, 390 n. 

Donohue, Peter, sailor and carpenter, 675. 

Draper, Eben S., member of Polar Bear 
party, 99. 

Drowned valleys on Banks Island, 510. 

Duchess of Bedford expedition, 107. 

Ducks, on Lougheed Island, 544. See 
Birds. 

Eagles, golden, in vicinity of Banks Is- 
land, 238. 

JEating, habits of, 191, 231 ; influence of 
prejudice in, 191-192 ; the question of 
fat needed in arctic diet, 355-356. See 
Food. 

Edna, gasoline launch, 109 ; subsequent 
history of, 273-274. 

Eight Bears Island, discovery of, 335 ; 
landing on, 341-342 ; description of, 342. 

Ekblaw, Dr. E., botanizing by, in arctic 
regions, 16. 

Ellef Ringnes Island, record left by Mac- 
Millan found in, 528-529; record left 
by author in, 532. 

EUesmere Island, glaciers in, 12 ; annual 
snowfall of, 13. 

El Sueno, motor schooner, 392-393. 

Elvira, ship, 41 ; wreck of, 66. 

Emerald Isle, seen by Storkerson, 338 ; 
reason for McClintock's appellation, 
343 ; touched by author's party on 
return trip in 1916, 558. 

Emiu, Eskimo sailor on Polar Bear, 395, 
407; called " Split-the-Wind," 423; first 
experience with snowhouse, 423-424 ; 
fondness of, for fast dog driving, 450 ; 
adventure of, in getting lost, 450-460 ; 
eating of bear liver by, and results, 481- 
482 ; kills first seal by auktok method, 
498; with author in trip of 1916, 498, 
504-507, 590. 



Emsley, Tom, of the Rosie H., 387. 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, contribution of, 
by publishers, 463. 

Equipment carried on northward ice trip, 
163-164. 

Eskimos, condition of, the contrary of 
wretched, 24-25 ; characteristics of, 
25-26, 89; wearing of labrets by, 38- 
40; at Cape Smythe, 36-40; sense of 
smell possessed by, 59-60 ; maps by, 
60; food tastes of, 63-64, 231; use of 
tobacco by, 40, 64 ; houses of, and re- 
lation of temperature to age of matur- 
ity, 75-79 ; attitude of, toward con- 
tracts, 79 ; difiiculties of language of, 
104-105; childlike notions of, 107; 
objections of, to accompanying author's 
party on ice journey, 129-130; com- 
plete lack of support from, 130 ; snow- 
house building a lost art to Alaskan, 
172-173 ; snowblindness among, 201 ; 
wooden eye protectors used by, 202 ; 
McClure's ship Investigator a treasure 
house to, 240-241, 360-363; methods 
of hunting caribou, 241, 401-402; 
"tent rings" of, 256; hunting customs 
of, J57j^ burial customs of, 257-25 8_; 
reasons for seemingly inaccurate state- 
ments by, 287 ; methods of hunting 
seals, 301-310 ; reasons for avoidance 
of Melville Island by, 344-345 ; sup- 
posed demand of, for fat in diet, 355- 
356 ; acquisition of salt and other 
strange food habits by, 366 ; finding 
of, in Banks Island, 370-371; hiring 
of, at Herschel Island (1915), 390-391; 
procedure in engaging, 394; "blond," 
400, 468, 469-470; cleanliness of re- 
cently civilized, 405 ; observance of 
Sabbath by, 407, 571 ; language of, 
408-409 ; strange beliefs of, 409-415, - 
439-442 ; teeth of, 414 ; a visit to the 
Copper, 416-426 ; fear of all strange 
tribes and peoples by, 426 ; treatment 
of, by white men, 431-432 ; the less 
sophisticated, the more agreeable, 432 ; 
pronunciation of names by, 440-442 ; 
losing of way by, 460 ; insanity among, 
466 ; marriage customs of, 466-467 ; 
bear liver taboo among, 479 ; the 
farthest north for, 544 ; chewing-gum 
used by, 564-565 ; traces of, found in 
Banks Island in 1917, 640-641. 
Eyes, care of, 200-202 ; wooden protec- 
tors used by Eskimos, 202 ; tricks 
played by the, in misidentifying objects, 
335-336; tricks in judgment of dis- 



772 



INDEX 



tances played by, 369; traveling of, 
in dreams, as believed by Eskimos, 
409-410; color of Eskimos', 469-471. 
Eyesight of animals, 307. 

Fat, tastes as to, 232-234; discussion of, 
as found on caribou, 246-247; pref- 
erence of polar bears for, 354; ques- 
tion of need for, in arctic diet, 355- 
356; fondness of tropical African ne- 
groes for, 356. 

Fiala, Anthony, pictures by, of polar 
auroras, 415. 

Field glasses, method of using, 227-228; 
two kinds of, carried in hunting, 489. 

Findlay Island, 533, 534 ; crossing of, 539. 

Firth, John, friend at Fort Macpherson, 
112 ; a believer in survival of author, 380. 

Fish, amount of, in arctic waters, 132- 
133, 209; caught by Copper Eskimos, 
420. 

Fisher, Cape, 564; McClintock's monu- 
ment and record at, 489. 

Fitzwilliam Owen Island of McClintock, 
335. 

Flaxman Island, visit to Leflangwell at, 
86-90. 

Floe ice, description of, 145-146. 

^ Flowers, See Vegetation. 

/ Food, simplicity of, in the North, 87 ; 

i value of different kinds of, 191 ; man's 

\ power of going without, 193-194; 

\ human tastes and prejudices regarding, 

) 211; bear meat as, 211-212; Eskimo 

/ tastes in, 231-232 ; eating of fats, 232- 

\ 234 ; going on hunts before eating, 337- 

\ 338 ; habits as to, of polar bears, 354 ; 

I the case against use of salt in, 365 ; 

I Eskimos' ideas of white men's, 425- 

\ 426 ; connection between diseases of 

\dogs and, 427 ; value of sugar as, 652 ; 
tlnsatisfactoriness of pemmican as, 717- 
718. See Eating. 

Food -tastes, of dogs, 61-63 ; of Eskimos, 
63-64 ; of white men, 64-65. 

Fort Yukon, hospital at, 680; author's 
arrival at (April, 1918), 685; courtesy 
and hospitality of people of, 685-686. 

Fossil shells found at Darnley Bay, 743- 
744. 

Fox, game of, with caribou yearlings, 624. 

Foxes, polar, 17 ; characteristics of white, 
155-156 ; in Banks Island, 255 ; trap- 
ping of, about whale's carcass at Banks 
Island, 287 ; killing of lemmings by, 
332 ; question of talked-of wisdom of, 
333 ; lemmings, owls, and, 345-347. 



Fram, drift of the, 673. 

Franklin, Sir John, description of Eskimo 

seen by, 471. 
Franklin Bay, local gale a phenomenon 

of, 478. 
Franklin Expedition, 7; practicability 

of members of, living off the country, 

323. 
Franz Josef Land, glaciers in, 12. 
Frost, methods of dealing with, in cloth- 
ing, 603-607. 
Fry, Mr. and Mrs. Henry, missionaries 

at Herschel Island, 677-682 ; kindness 

and good intentions of, 682. 
Fuel, kerosene better than seal blubber 

as, 163 ; prevalence of, on mainland 

of northern Canada, 243 ; ignorance of 

native tribes as to, 243-244. 

Galena, finding of, near Detention Har- 
bor, 748. 

Gales as local phenomena, 478. 

Geese, driving of, by Eskimos, 371 ; 
found north of Cape Isachsen, 518. 
See Birds. 

German silver, shoeing sleds with, 601-602. 

Girling, H., missionary, 752. 

Glaciers, location of, 11 ; absence of, from 
northern Alaska, 11-12. 

Glasses. See Field glasses and Snow 
glasses. 

"God's Country" movies, 227. 

Gonzales, Henry, made commander of 
Polar Bear, 395 ; unfortunate expe- 
rience with Minto Inlet Eskimos, 430- 
437 ; Eskimos' name for, 441 ; mis- 
adventures of, on attempted trip to 
Mercy Bay, 477 ; favorable report from, 
565 ; arrival of, at Melville Island, and 
story told by, 598-600; reports pro- 
jected trip of Bernard and Thomsen 
to Liddon Gulf, 599 ; action of, in 
taking Polar Bear south in 1916, 626- 
627 ; destruction of Mary Sachs by, 
659 ; possible motives of, in destroy- 
ing Mary Sachs, 659-660; attempted 
explanation of behavior by, 665 ; feaves 
the expedition, 666. 

Gordon, Thomas, in charge of trading 
post near Herschel Island, 670. 

Gore Islands, hunting camp on, 448 ; 
Natkusiak's experiences at, 462. 

Grant Land, 10. 

Grass in polar regions, 584. 

Grassy, Cape, 490, 491. 

Great Bear Lake, region of, as a hunting 
country, 245. 



INDEX 



773 



Great War, a reason for worth-whileness 
of, 72-73 ; first news received of (1915), 
375-378; further news of (1917), 668; 
news of, received by wireless at Fort 
Yukon, 685. 

Greely Expedition, sufferings of members 
from hunger, 194. 

Greenland, an ice-covered land, 12, 

Grey, Sir Edward, as a prophet, 625. 

Gulf Stream, action and effect of, 9. 

Gulls in arctic regions, 217 ; Ivory, 217 ; 
Barrow, 217; at Banks Island, 242; 
killing of lemmings by, 332 ; rookery 
of, on Melville Island, 356-357; north 
of Cape Isachsen, 518; eggs of- Ross's, 
discovered by McClintock, 522 ; found 
by author, 522 ; seen by Storkerson's 
drifting party, 700; found by Karluk 
crew at Cape Waring, 718. 

Gumaer, A., support given Storkerson 
by, in survey work, 657 ; return of, to 
Cape Kellett, 657-658; volunteers for 
drifting trip in Arctic Ocean (1918), 
695. 

Guninana, Eskimo woman, 450 ; ethno- 
logical information from, 451. 

Guns carried by author, 163, 406-407. 

Hadley, John, friend at Cape Smythe, 
38 ; engaged for expedition, 36 ; special 
reasons for engaging, 36-38 ; meeting 
with, at Herschel Island, 388 ; as chief 
house-builder at Victoria Island, 402 ; 
encounter with a bear, 484—485 ; made 
master of Polar Bear, 670 ; at Barter 
Island with Storkerson's party (1918), 
690-691 ; birth and training of, for 
polar work, 703 ; death of, from influ- 
enza in San Francisco, 703 ; account 
by, of last cruise of Karluk, 703-721. 

Haggard, H. Rider, the stories of, 464. 

Hair, effect of North on growth of, 410- 
411; of Eskimos, 467. 

Hall, C. F., on snowhouses, 176. 

Hamilton, Lieutenant, the Markham 
Island of, 564 ; package containing 
jackets of, found in Kellett's depot, 
630. 

Hanbury, David, description of Dismal 
Lake by, 21 ; meeting of Hitkoak with, 
419. 

Hansen, Godfred, survey work of, on 
Victoria Island, 400. 

Harding, Mr. and Mrs. C, 102, 390, 677, 
679. 

Hardship, qualifications for meeting suc- 
cessfully, 65 ; not necessarily involved 



in arctic exploration, 179 ; general lack 
of, in author's polar experience, 490- 
491 ; further discussion, 571-573. 

Harkin, J. B., member of commission on 
domestication of ovibos, 589 n. 

Harness, troubles from rotting of, 351- 
352. 

Harnessing of dogs, 147, 148; tandem 
system, 148, 180. 

Harper, Walter, author's meeting with, 
on way to Fort Yukon, 684. 

Harpooning of seals by Eskimos, 309. 

Harrison Bay, grounding of Karluk in, 
43-44 ; crossing of, by author's party 
(1914), 79-81. 

Harvard men on Polar Bear, 99-100. 

Hassel Sound, 525 ; tide observations on, 
528. 

Hayes, American explorer, "Open Polar 
Sea" of, 324. 

Hazen, Sir Douglas, Minister of Naval 
Service, 383-384. 

Heard, John, Jr., member of Polar Bear 
party, 99 ; visit from, at Martin Point, 
142. 

Heather for fuel, 244 ; abundance of, in 
Banks Island, 256. 

Hecla Bay, 564. 

Herona, Minto Inlet Eskimo boy, 370. 

Herschel Island, weather observatory at, 
14; arrival at (New Year's, 1914), 103- 
104 ; snowhouse built by author at 
(1917-18), 173 ; summer visit to (1915), 
387-396 ; excitement caused by author's 
arrival at, 388 ; post of Hudson's Bay 
Company, founded at, 389 ; arrival 
at, on return trip (1917), 670; author 
ill with typhoid fever and pneumonia 
at, 677-682. 

Hitkoak, Copper Eskimo, 419, 420. 

Hobbs, W. H., "Earth Features and Their 
Meaning," cited, 514. 

Hoff, J. E., engineer, 392. 

Hoods, wearing of, in the North, 605. 

Hopson, Alfred, interpreter at Cape 
Smythe, 36, 69-70, 79. 

Horlick's milk cans, uses for, 516. 

Hornaday, W. T., cited on wool of ovi- 
bos, 587. 

Hornby Point, Wynniatt's farthest north, 
430. 

Houses, change in style of Eskimos', 75 ; 
relation between lower temperature of, 
and increase in age of maturity of 
women, 75; suggestions on building, 
in North, 403 ; of Copper Eskimos, 418- 
420. See also Snowhouses. 



774 



INDEX 



Hudson, Henry, 2. 

Hudson, W. H., photographer, 99. 

Hudson's Bay Company, expansion of, 

along Arctic coast, 389-390. 
Hunger, remarks on death from, 193 ; 

relation between irregularity of meals 

and, 457. 
Hunting, method of, in Banks Island, 

280-281; dogs used by Eskimos for, 

420-421. 

Ice, popular misconception concerning, in 
arctic regions, 11-12 ; freshening of sea, 
31-32, 166 ; description of moving sea, 
145-146; action of, 146-147; winter 
camps on, 147 ; lack of salt in sea, after 
weathering, 166; telling the age of, 171- 
172 ; presence of seals dependent on 
mobility of, 183-184 ; depth of, suitable 
for safe travel, 295, 298; paleocrystic, 
defined, 351; "needle," 352; action of, 
on shores, 509-510. 

Ice deserts in the Arctic, 613, 735-736. 

Iceland, effect of Gulf Stream on climate 
of, 9. 

Ice movement off northern Alaska, 188. 

Ice shoeing for sleds, 601. 

Ikkayak, Eskimo woman, 441. 

lUun, Herschel Island Eskimo, 393, 400, 
431 ; revelation of Eskimo beliefs by, 
409-415. 

Indians, tactics of, in hunting caribou, 229- 
230 ; Mackenzie River, 432. 

"Ingoldsby Legends," as a traveling 
companion, 464-465. 

Ingutok whales, question of species, 416. 

Insanity among Eskimos, 466. 

Insects in arctic regions, 15, 18. See 
Mosquitoes. 

Instincts, unreliability of, 188. 

Inuksuit, use of, in caribou hunting, 401- 
402. 

Inuksuk, "likeness of a man," 402. 

Investigator, McClure's ship, a treasure 
house to Eskimos, 240-241, 360-363; 
abandonment of, at Mercy Bay, 359- 
360 ; remaining traces of, 362. 

Ireland's Eye, island so called by McClin- 
tock, 325 ; question of location of, 325- 
326. 

Isachsen, Cape, 498; arrival at (May, 
1916), 503 ; error in original location of, 
506-507 ; correction in location of, 618. 

ItkiUk River, 55. 

Jadite, tools and ornaments of, 38. 
Jags River, derivation of name, 92 n. 



Japan Current, action of, 9. 

Jeannette, drift of the, 673. 

Jenness, Diamond, anthropologist, 51 ; 
left at Cape Halkett to study Eskimos, 
70, 79 ; success of, with Eskimo lan- 
guage, 105 ; work accomplished by, 737, 
750. 

Jochimsen, Captain, master of King and 
Winge on voyage to rescue Karluk sur- 
vivors, 726-730. 

Johansen, Frits, marine biologist, 111, 139, 
140 ; attitude of, in Collinson Point dif- 
ficulty, 120 ; work done by, 738. 

John and Winthrop, whaling bark, 42. 

John Russell, Point, northeast corner of 
Banks Island, 434 ; wrongly placed on 
map, 632, 636 ; correct location of, 639. 

Jones, John, second engineer of Polar Bear, 
395; death of, 483. 

Jones Islands, 57. 

Karluk, departure of, from Nome, 27 ; 
encounters ice floe off Cape Smythe, 29 ; 
experience in ice pack, 34, 41-43 ; 
grounding of, 43-44 ; reasons for buying, 
47 ; news of, received by author at Cape 
Kellett, 270 ; news of, from Polar Bear 
party at Cape Kellett, 375 ; books lost 
on, 463-464 ; other items lost, 464 ; facts 
proved by drift of, 673 ; Hadley's per- 
sonal account of last voyage of, 703-721 ; 
supplementary accounts of rescue of 
survivors, 721-730. 

Kataktovik, Cape Smythe Eskimo, 36, 54. 

Kayaks, Nansen's, 207-208. 

Keenan Land, non-existence of, proved , 
702. 

Kellett, explorer, depot left by, at Dealy 
Island, 628-631. 

Kellett, Cape, 189 ; the Mary Sachs found 
at, 266-267 ; start of ice expedition from 
(1915), 293 ; return to (summer of 1915), 
372; departure from (Sept. 3, 1915), 
397 ; story of events at, during author's 
absence in 1917, 646-662. ^ 

Kerosene, advantages over seal oil as fuel, 
163, 327, 597. 

Keruk, wife of Kurraluk, 36, 54. 

Kilian, Herman, engineer of Polar Bear, 
374, 395 ; with Storkerson on survey of 
Victoria Island coast, 408, 694. 
ilian, Martin, 395, 435, 443 ; with author 
in trip of 1916, 474; support given 
Storkerson by, in survey work, 657-658 ; 
volunteers for drifting trip in Arctic 
Ocean (1918), 695; meteorological rec- 
ord kept by, 697. 



INDEX 



775 



Kingaliktok, meaning of word, 57. 

King and Winge, rescue of Karluk party, 
721, 726-730. 

King Christian Island, size and location 
of, as laid down on Admiralty chart, 507 ; 
discoveiy of real extent, 532-536 ; not 
actually visited by Captain Isachsen, 
534 n. 

King Point, Amundsen's winter quarters, 
676 

Kitirkolak, Copper Eskimo, 422. 

Kleist, Baron, Russian official, 270; care 
given Captain Bartlett by, 724. 

Klinkenberg, Captain Charles, Eskimos 
who visited, 425; father of Mrs. Stor- 
kerson, 470 ; house of, at Darnley Bay, 
741. 

Knight, E. Lome, assistant to Captain 
Bernard at Cape Kellett, 396 ; freezing 
of heel by, 491 ; ill with scurvy, 613-619 ; 
reveals occurrences on Polar Bear in 
1916, 625-627; volunteers for drifting 
trip in Arctic Ocean (1918), 695. 

Knight Harbor, location of, 399 ; discovery 
of, 636. 

Kullak, Minto Inlet Eskimo, 370-371; 
appeal made by, for magical help in case 
of birth of child, 371-372; more news 
of, 417; lays charge of murder against 
author, 566; threats and acts of, 567. 

Kuniluk, Minto Inlet Eskimo, 437-438. 

Kurraluk, Cape Smvthe Eskimo, 36, 54. 

Kutok, wife of Ilium, 408, 412; tale of 
Eskimo magic by, 439-440. 

Kuvuk, Alaskan river, 442. 

Labrets. See Lip buttons. 

Lambton, Cape, 397. 

Lamont, police constable, 677 ; death of, 
from typhoid fever, 678. 

La Nauze, Charles D., Inspector in 
Mounted Police, 756. 

Land's End, arrival at (June 4, 1915), 
299. 

Lane, Captain Louis, owner of Polar Bear, 
41, 99; greeting given author by, at 
Cape Kellett, 374-375 ; Polar Bear sold 
to author by, 393 ; Gladiator bought for, 
and departure of, from Cape Kellett, 394, 
395 ; goes home overland, 599. 

Langton Bay, local gale a phenomenon of, 
478. 

Language, the Eskimo, 104-105. 

"Last Voyage of the Karluk," by Bartlett 
and Hale, cited, 53, 56, 67, 69, 77 £f. 

Leavitt, Captain George, explorer, 47, 125 ; 
in command of Narwhal, 240. 



Leffingwell, E. de K., 12, 83, 703 ; visit to 
and home of, at Flaxman Island, 86-90 
map by, of north coast of Alaska, 88 
study of Eskimo language by, 105 
sounding wire secured from, 171 ; story 
told by, concerning Eskimo supersti- 
tions, 439-440. 

Lefl&ngwell Crags, discovery of, 337 ; prom- 
inence as landmarks, 342 ; sighting of, 
in expedition of 1916, 497. 

Lemmings, bird and animal enemies of, 
332 ; hunting of, by owls, 345-347. 

Lice on seals, 308. 

Liddon Gulf, shores of, on Melville Island, 
the farthest north for Eskimos, 544. 

Lindeberg, Jafet, Alaskan pioneer and 
mining operator, 115, 725 ; charters 
Corwin to go to rescue of Karluk party, 
725, 727. 

Lip buttons, made of jadite, 38 ; wearing 
of, by Eskimos, 38-40. 

Livers of bears, experiments in eating, 479- 
482. 

"Living off the country," practice of, 179. 

Lockwood, Dunbar, member of Polar Bear 
party, 99. 

Lopez, Peter, Eskimo wife of, 468 ; camp 
of, 570 ; overcomes prejudice against 
fat, 591-592. 

Lopp, William T., reindeer introduced into 
Alaska by, 580. 

Lougheed Island, discovery of, 541-542 ; 
conditions on, 542-546 ; record left on 
Lookout Hill at, 546-547; first dis- 
covered by Castel, 563 ; visit to in 1917, 
619-621. 

McClintock, Cape, finding of cairn and 
McClintock's record at, 318-320; dis- 
covery of new land near, 327-330. 

McClintock, Captain F. L., failure of, to 
find food supply in polar waters, 300; 
traces of, at Prince Patrick Island, 312 ; 
description of small island quoted from 
report of, 313-314 ; real purpose of, the 
search for Franklin's party, 317 ; finding 
of cairn of, and records left by, 318-320 ; 
among the first to realize possibility of 
living off the country, 322; discussion 
of Polynia Islands of, 324; report of, 
quoted on weather conditions, 340 ; 
survey work of, on Melville Island, 350 ; 
monument of, and record at Cape Fisher, 
489 ; boot designed by, 604. 

McClintock, Sir Leopold, 3; on snow- 
houses, 176 ; discovery of eggs of Ross's 
gull by, 522. 



776 



INDEX 



McClure, early explorer, 125 ; polar cattle 
found by, 240 ; ship Investigator, aban- 
doned by, found by Eskimos, 240-241 ; 
inaccuracy of chart made from obser- 
vations of, 261 ; discovery of Mercy 
Bay by, 359 ; abandonment of Investi- 
gator by, 360 ; finding of beacon and 
record of, near Knight Harbor, 637-638. 

McClure, Cape, 474. 

McConnell, B. M., characteristics of, 55; 
New York Times interview with, 79-80 ; 
creditable showing made by, on first 
winter journey, 90; support given au- 
thor by, 139 ; joins author on northward 
journey, 144-145 ; description of moving 
sea ice by, 145-146 ; sent back with 
others of support party, 160; subse- 
quent career of, 382-383 ; rescue plan 
of, 383 ; author's gratitude to, for good 
intentions, 385 ; story by, of rescue of 
Karluk survivors, 726-730. 

Mackay, Dr., first impressions made upon, 
by the Arctic, 35-36 ; with Karluk party 
on last voyage, 705 ; last heard of, 710. 

Mackenzie delta, plans for study of, 70-71 ; 
completion of plans for survey of, 109- 
110. 

McKinlay, W. L., on board the Karluk 
caught in the ice, 51 ; letter to author 
from (1920), quoted, 73; rescue of, on 
Wrangel Island, 729. 

McLean, J. S., member of commission on 
domestication of ovibos, 589 n. 

MacMillan, Donald, game found by, 502 ; 
finding of beacon and record of, in EUef 
Ringnes Island, 528-529 ; information 
contained in record, 529-531 ; souvenirs 
of, a treasure trove, 531-532 ; narrow 
escape of, from discovering truth about 
King Christian Island, 536. 

Macmillan Company, books contributed 
by, to expedition, 463. 

Macpherson, Fort, 14, 104 ; arrival at 
(1914), 111-112. 

Magic, author requested to exercise, in a 
case of childbirth, 371 ; Eskimo belief 
in, 439-440. 

Magnetic pole, local, near Cape Lambton, 
397. 

Mamayauk, Eskimo woman, 480. 

Manak, tool for securing floating seals, 302. 

Maps, character of arctic, 60 ; native place 
names on, 440-442. 

Marie Bay, depth of, 349. 

Markham, Sir Clements, quoted, 5 ; cited 
on vegetation in arctic regions, 16 ; on 
animal life in arctic regions, 17 ; ref- 



erence by, to "polar ocean without life," 
126. 

Markham Island, 563. 

Marriage customs among Eskimos, 466- 
467. 

Marrows, flavor of, 234. 

Marsh, H. R,., medical missionary, 76. 

Martin Point, outfitting base. 111 ; journey 
to (1914), 141-142 ; start on ice journey 
made from, 142. 

Mary Sachs, schooner, 27 ; author's plans 
for use of, 50-51 ; arrival of, at CoUinson 
Point, 66 ; finding of, by author's party, 
at Cape Kellett, 266-277 ; why sent to 
Banks Island in place of North Star, 
271-272 ; wreck of, found by author at 
Cape Kellett, 644-645; story of last 
days and destruction of, 655-660. 

Masik, August, found by author at Cape 
Kellett (1917), 645; help given author 
by, 662 ; made second officer of Polar 
Bear, 670; volunteers for drifting trip 
in Arctic Ocean (1918), 695. 

Mason, WiUoughby, visit with, 108-109. 

Mauttok method of seal hunting, 305 ; 
auktok method compared with, 310. 

May, Lieutenant, member of Osborn's 
party, 549. 

Mecham, Lieutenant, 3 ; cited on veg- 
etation in arctic regions, 17 ; Prince 
Patrick Island explored by (1853), 300; 
inaccuracy of maps made by, 301 ; pos- 
sibility of living off the country reahzed 
by, 322. 

Meighen, A. M., interest of, in domesti- 
cation of ovibos, 589 n. 

Meighen Island, discovery of, 517-520; 
record left in beacon on north end of, 
524. 

Melville Island, 3 ; traces of polar cattle 
found in, 240 ; summer trip along coast 
of, 344 ; reason why not inhabited by 
Eskimos, 344 ; animal life on, 344-345 ; 
McClintock's and Admiralty charts o^ 
350 ; ovibos herd on, 558-560 ; coal on, 
563 ; killing of ovibos on, 582 ; winter 
spent in (1916-17), 594-597; finding of 
Bernier's record on, 624-625. 

Melville Sound, navigability of, 430 ; cross- 
ing of, in 1917, 633. 

Mercy Bay, McClure at, 240 ; hunting by 
Eskimos about, 241 ; author's arrival at 
(1915), 359 ; account of, 359-363. 

Mike, Siberian native engineer, 392. 

Mikkelsen, Ejnar, Danish explorer, 129 ; 
views of, opposed to author's, 130 ; 
"Conquering the Arctic Ice," cited, 441, 



INDEX 



777 



694; experience with German silver 
shoeing for sledges, 601. 

Milk of ovibos, 586-587. 

Mineral outcrops, discovery of, by Wil- 
kins' section, 748, 749, 753. 

Minto Inlet Eskimos, 418 ; unfortunate 
experiences with, 430-439 ; pronun- 
ciation of author's name by, 441. See 
Copper Eskimos. 

Mirage, seen by Storkerson, 490. 

Missionaries, remarks on, 25, 28 ; under- 
standing of Eskimo language by, 105 ; 
an Eskimo supporter of, and his views, 

, 105-106 ; not wholly responsible for 
loss of charm by Eskimos, 107 ; views 
taken by, of civilized Eskimos, 431-432. 

Mixter, Samuel, member of Polar Bear 
party, 99. 

Moggs, Captain, whaler, 161 ; Eskimos 
who visited, 425. 

Montana, winter climate of, compared 
with that of Alaska, 14-15. 

Moosehide harness, rotting of, 351, 352. 

Mosquitoes, in arctic regions, 15 ; lacking 
in Norway Island, 227 ; a serious draw- 
back of the North, 245. 

Mott, Hulin S., in charge of Polar Bear, 
99; support given author by, 118; visit 
from, at Martin Point, 142 ; magazine 
article by, quoted, 142 ; question con- 
cerning blizzard reported by, 142-143. 

Mountain sheep, eyesight of, 307. 

Muir, John, "Cruise of the Corwin" by, 
725. 

Murray, James, oceanographer, 30, 32 ; 
disbelief of, in theory of fresh water from 
sea ice, 33 ; author's plans for employ- 
ment of, 50-51. 

Murray, Sir John, story of, 30-31 ; works 
by, cited, 132 ; testimony of, concerning 
animal life within the polar ice region, 
132. 

Mush ice, formation of, 146. 

Musk oxen, in northern Greenland, 17 ; a 
better name for, the ovibos, 238 ; ex- 
tended discussion of, 238-239. See 
Ovibos. 

Nagyuktogmiut, Eskimos grouped under 

name of, 469. 
Nahmens, Captain, of Ship Alaska, 95, 139. 
Naipaktuna, Eskimo guide, 681. 
Names, mispronunciation of, by Eskimos 

and whites, 440-442 ; Eskimo views of 

relation between souls and, 467. 
Nansen, Fridtjof , 5 ; plan followed by, in 

arctic exploration, 127-128 ; lesson from 



case of, 128 ; testimony of, concerning 
animal life within the polar ice region, 
132-133; canvas boats used by, 207; 
statement by, concerning pressure ridges, 
513-514 ; quotation showing travel- 
ing methods of, 602-603 ; great step 
forward in polar exploration made by, 
673. 

Nathorst, Cape, as located by Isachsen, 
534. 

Natkusiak, Eskimo companion, 81 ; with 
Mary Sachs party at Cape Kellett, 270 ; 
hunting with, in Banks Island, 279-284 ; 
fear held by, of sea ice, 294 ; hunting by, 
on Gore Islands, 448 ; experiences of, 
462 ; with author in trip of 1916, 474 ; 
meeting with, on Melville Island (1916), 
562 ; report from Castel supplemented 
by, 563-565 ; sale of North Star to, 611. 

Needle ice, defined, 352. 

Nelson Head, 397. 

Neriyok, Minto Inlet Eskimo woman, 370- 
371 ; more news of, 417 ; death of, 
566. 

Nerves, attack of, suffered by author, 504- 
505. 

Newspapers, accounts by, of author's re- 
ception of news of Great War, 377. 

Nias, Point, 489. 

Nichols, J. T., "Fishes of the High Seas" 
by, cited, 132. 

"Nigger heads," defined, 256. 

Noice, Harold, sailor on Polar Bear, 395, 
435 ; with author on winter travels 
(1915-16), 443 ff., 494-495 ; exploration 
by, of new land discovered, 518-519 ; 
offer of, to stay alone at Cape Murray, 
556 ; stricken with scurvy, 613-619 ; 
plans for future, and last news from, 
668-669. 

Nome, departure from (1913), 27. 

Norem, Andrew, steward, threatened with 
insanity, 94-95 ; account of end of, 270. 

North Pole, characteristics of surroundings 
of, 8-9. 

North Star, navigation of, by Captain 
Andreasen, 102-103 ; bought by author, 
103 ; part to be taken by, in author's 
jjrogram, 125 ; author's orders concern- 
ing, not obeyed, and reasons, 271-272 ; 
arrival north of Norway Island, 445 ; 
Wilkins' experiences with, 446-447 ; 
author's adventures in finding, 453-457 ; 
comfort of winter quarters on, 457-458 ; 
library of books on, 464 ; hauled upon 
land and left, 473 ; sold to Natkusiak, 
611. 



778 



INDEX 



Northwest Passage, discovery of , 7 ; routes 
for making, 430-431 ; the discovery of, 
by McClure, 637-638. 

Norway Island, 220 ; arrival of author's 
party at, 223-225 ; animal life on, 227 ; 
beacon erected on, 235. 

Nutaittok, young Copper Eskimo, 426; 
at author's winter base at Victoria Is- 
land, 427-429. 

Ocean, discussion of amount of animal 
life in, 132-136. 

O'Connor, "Duffy," trader, 71, 94; pur- 
chase of lot of goods from, 101 ; attitude at 
time of Collinson Point trouble, 117-118. 

Olesen, Louis, sailor companion of author, 
109. 

O'Neill, J. J., geologist, 111, 112, 113; 
conduct of, at time of threatened Col- 
linson Point mutiny, 114-116; geolog- 

■ ical work accomplished by, 737, 753. 

Open Polar Sea, myth of, 324. 

Osborn, Sherard, Finciay Land as located 

Wn by, 507 ; quotation from diary of, 549. 

Ottawa Government, author's report to 
(1913), 68-72 ;encouragingreply from, 72. 

Ovibos, 17, 234, 238-239; extinction of, 
in Banks Island, 241 ; respect of wolves 
for, 324 ; skull of female, found on Eight 
Bears Island, 342 ; traces of slaughter 
of, in Banks Island, 367 ; view taken 
by Eskimos of extermination of, in 
Banks Island, 370 ; dislike of, for cross- 
ing on sea ice from island to island, 521- 
522 ; reasons for present location of, 
522; killed by MacMillan, 530; in 
Melville Island, 558-560, 562; hunt- 
ing of, a questionable "sport," 559- 
560 ; safety of, fromi wolves, 575 ; two 
methods of killing, 581-583 ; reason 
for killing entire herd, 583-584 ; grass 
the food of, 584 ; meat of, compared 
with beef, 585; wool of, 585-586; 
unique characteristics of, among graz- 
ing animals, 586 ; size of herds, 586 ; 
milk of, 586-587 ; qualities suiting, for 
domestication, 588 ; hair and wool of, 
used for fuel, 623. See also Musk-oxen 
and Polar cattle. 

Owl, seen on Melville Island, 345. 

Owls, hunting of lemmings by, 345-347 ; 
nests of, found in Banks Island, 640. 

Palaiyak, Eskimo companion, 400, 407 ; 
tries to make peace with Prince Albert 
Sound Eskimos on author's behalf, 566. 

Paleocrystic ice, 351. 



P.ammiungittok, Copper Eskimo patri- 
arch, 422-423. 
Parry, Cape, grave of Eskimo at, 468. 
Parry, Edward, 2-3. 

Parsons, Constable Jack, of Royal North- 
west Mounted Police, 104 ; with Polar 
Bear party at Cape Kellett, 374-375; 
killing of bowhead whale by, 387-388. 

Pauyurak, Point Hope Eskimo, 28, 56, 79. 

Peameal, value as food, 191. 

Peary, Robert E., 3, 4, 5, 10 ; question of 
discovery of North Pole by, not prin- 
cipal point in discussion of, 6 ; polar 
knowledge kept for own use by, 31 ; 
quoted on dangers of arctic navigation, 
37 ; quoted on polar ice-fighting, 42 n. ; 
advises author to engage Captain Bart- 
lett, 47 ; procedure of, in arctic explo- 
ration, 128-129 ; example of, an argu-, 
ment against author's own plan, 129 ; 
and the question of seals in arctic wa- 
ters, 135; "The North Pole" by, 
cited, 135 ; system followed by, com- 
pared with author's proposed plan, 
137-138 ; snowhouses not built by, 176 ; 
quoted on objections to tobacco in 
polar work, 365 n. ; attitude taken by, 
toward probability of author's death, 
381 ; best journey of exploration under 
old-school plan made by, 732. 

Peddie Point, coal at, 568. 

Pedersen, C. T., captain of Elvira, 41 ; 
valuable advice of, 47 ; newspaper 
interview with, concerning author's 
chances of survival, 189 ; captain of 
the Herman, 270; theories of, concern- 
ing author's activities, 383, 384 ; ad- 
ventures of, in the Herman, 670-671. 

Pedersen, Peder, visit with, 108-109 ; as 
engineer of author's gasoline launch, 
109-110; failure as engineer of launch 
Edna, 273. 

Peel Point, depot at, 406, 407, 408. ^ 

Pemmican, "man" and "dog," 485; 
trouble with that meant for dogs, 485- 
486 ; unsatisfactory as food for both 
men and dogs, 717-718. 

Perry, Col. A. Bowen, of Royal North- 
west Mounted Police, 104. 

Petermann, German geographer, mis- 
taken theory held by, 324. 

Phalaropes on Banks Island, 237. 

Phayre Point, visit to, 416-417. 

Phillips, George, representative of Naval 
Service, 115. 

Phillips, J. W., Inspector Royal North- 
west Mounted Police, 103, 680, 681; 



INDEX 



779 



trip to Fort Macpherson with, 104- 
108 ; a believer in author's survival, 
380; triumph of, on author's return to 
Herschel Island, 388. 

Phonograph, Eskimo attitude toward, 
428. 

Pikalu, Eskimo companion, 400; with 
Captain Gonzales in visit to Minto 
Inlet Eskimos, 430-437. 

Pike, Warburton, 243. 

Pirn, Bedford, possibility of living off the 
country realized by, 322. 

Plants. See Vegetation. 

Point Barrow, arrival at (1913), 68; 
action of ice on beach at, 509-510; 
"rescue" of whalers caught in ice at, 
579-580. 

Point Hope, arrival of Karluk at, 28. 

Polar Bear, Captain Lane's ship, 41 ; 
visit to winter quarters of (1914), 99; 
support of party given author at time 
of CoUinson Point trouble, 118; guests 
from, at Martin Point, 142 ; arrival 
at Cape Kellett, 374 ; first news of 
Great War brought by, 375-378 ; char- 
tered by author, 379 ; bought by au- 
thor, 393 ; decision as to ofl&cers and 
crew of, 395-396 ; winter quarters 
of, off Victoria Island, 399-400; Stor- 
kerson's favorable report as to condi- 
tions on (1916), 565; failure of, to 
reach Melville Island, 568; real story 
of, in summer of 1916, 625-627 ; Gon- 
zales' conduct in sailing away from 
Cape Kellett in, 659-660; recovery 
of, by author, and last of Gonzales, 
664-666 ; stranding of, at Barter Is- 
land (1917), 671-672; selling of, at 
Nome, 686. 

Polar bear liver, question whether poi- 
sonous, 479-482. 

Polar cattle, name chosen for musk-ox or 
ovibos, 238-239 ; discussion of, 239-240 , 
extinction of, in Banks Island, 241 ; 
eyesight of, 307; not attacked by 
wolves, 324 ; killing of two old bulls 
at Melville Island, 347-348; detec- 
tion of musk odor in, 348 ; later speci- 
mens seen on Melville Island trip, 349 ; 
slow thinking powers of, 349. See 
Ovibos. 

Polar exploration, four stages in, 1-6. 

Polygamy and polyandry among Eski- 
mos, 466. 

Polynia Islands, mentioned by McClin- 
tock, 314; visit to, and discussion of, 
324-326. 



Pots, clay, 38. 

Pressure ridges, formation of, 509-510; 
reasons for Nansen's statement as to 
height of, 514 ; Sverdrup quoted on, 
514 ; shells heaped on, by ice action, 
515-516. 

Primus stoves, use of, 203, 597, 698. 

Prince Albert Sound, "blond Eskimos" 
of, 400, 418, 468 ; murder charge laid 
against author by Eskimos of, 566. 

Prince of Wales Strait, winter quarters 
of Polar Bear in, 399. 

Prince Patrick Island, viewed as northern 
boundary of arctic life, 126 ; arrival 
at (June 4, 1915), 299; description of, 
by Mecham, 300; absence of game on, 
301 ; mapping of, completed by au- 
thor, 312-317. 

Pronunciation, white and Eskimo, 440- 
442. 

Providence Point, 361. 

Ptarmigan, on Banks Island, 237-238 ; on 
Eight Bears Island, 342 ; on Lougheed 
Island, 544. 

Pusimmik, wife of Pikalu, 408, 412. 

Rae, Dr. John, Eskimos' name for, 442. 

Raglan Range, 562, 608. 

Raised beach lines in the North, 509-510; 
at Cape Isachsen, 510; on Meighen 
Island, 521. 

Rampart House, arrival at, in 1918, 683. 

Ramsay Island, lUun's camp at, 437-439. 

Ravens in vicinity of Banks Island, 238, 
242. 

Reindeer, at Cape Smythe, 36 ; essen- 
tially an arctic animal, 475 ; intro- 
duction of, into Alaska, 580; ovibos 
as a possible superior to, as a domestic 
animal, 588-589. 

Rice, value as food, 191-192 ; cooking of, 
192. 

Richardson, Sir John, early explorer, 25. 

Ridges, gravel, heaped up by ice pressure, 
509-510. See Pressure ridges. 

Rifle, accident in using, 406-407. 

Ringnes Islands, 498. 

Robilliard Island, 459. 

Rocky soil of Victoria Island, 401. 

Rood, H. E., New York Sun article by, 
384-385. 

Ross, Sir John, 3. 

Ross's gull, finding of eggs of, 522. 

Royal Northwest Mounted Police, quality 
of men who compose, 104. 

Ruby, navigation of, by Captain Cottle, 
102 ; supplies sent on, by Government, 



780 



INDEX 



378, 379; found at Herschel Island, 
388 ; goods of Hudson's Bay Company 
brought by, 388-389. 

Russell, Frank, 243. 

Rutherford, J. G., chairman of commis- 
sion on domestication of ovibos, 589 n. 

Sabbath, observance of, by civilized Eski- 
mos, 407, 571. 

Salmon, fish resembling, caught by Cop- 
per Eskimos, 420. 

Salmon berries, eating of, 63-64. 

Salt, not needed in food, 365 ; breaking 
the habit of using, 386; acquisition of 
habit by Eskimos, 366. 

Sapsuk, Eskimo dog, 633-635 ; death of, 
641-642. 

Scandinavians, explorations of early, 1-2. 

Schultz, Mr. and Mrs., of trading post 
on Crow River, 682-683, 684. 

Scientific reports of author's expedition, 
196. 

Scurvy, brief discussion of disease and 
supposed cures, 593-594; papers on, 
by author, 594 n. ; death of one of Cap- 
tain Lane's men from, 599 ; illness of 
Andersen, Noice, and Knight with, 
610-611, 613-618; raw meat a cure 
for, 618-619. 

Sea deserts, 613, 735-736. 

Seal meat, cooking of, 60-61. 

Seal oil, use of, for fuel, 203-204 ; drink- 
ing of, by Eskimos, 355. 

Seals in arctic waters, author's reasoning 
concerning, 132-136 ; interest of au- 
thor's expedition in, 136; shooting of, 
by author and Storkerson, 153-154 ; 
as food for polar bears and white foxes, 
155-156; found in 180 fathoms of 
water, 157 ; detecting signs of, in arctic 
ice, 171-172 ; presence of, in polar 
ocean entirely dependent on mobility 
of ice, 183-184 ; theory of presence of, 
in arctic waters, confirmed, 192-193, 
198 ; sinking of, and cause, 196 ; age 
when best for food, 208; the best all- 
round animals of the North, 209 ; skin- 
ning of, 214, 414; auktok and mauttok 
methods of hunting, 301-310 ; eyesight 
of, 307; afflicted with lice, 308; large 
size of, on Prince Patrick Island, 312 ; 
weight of largest seal killed, 312-313 ; 
boots shod with hide of, 352 ; eating 
of, by wolves, 354 ; killed on Victoria 
Island (winter of 1915), 402; hunting 
of, with dogs, 420-421 ; alertness of, 
because of enemies in arctic waters, 



502-503 ; chewing-gum made from 
blood of, 565. 

Seamstresses, Eskimo women as, 390. 

Service, Robert, 20. 

Seton, E. T., "Arctic Prairies" by, cited, 
15, 17. 

Seymour, William, whaling officer, 131 ; 
second officer of Polar Bear, 380 n. ; 
made first officer of Polar Bear, 395; 
paid off at Herschel Island (1917), 670. 

Shackleton, Sir E., "South" by, cited, 
20; on snowhouses in the Antarctic, 
175-176. 

Shagavanaktok River, 81, 83. 

Shaler, N. S., tribute to, as gentleman 
and teacher, 478-479. 

Shaler Mountains, discovery and naming 
of, 478-479. 

Shannon, Anthony, worker in metals, 675. 

Sharyoak, Eskimo employee, 681. 

Shells, heaped on pressure ridges by ice, 
515-516 ; fossil, found at Darnley Bay, 
743-744. 

Shingle Point, Christian Sten and Es- 
kimos at, 468. 

Ships, questionable value of, in explora- 
tion, 472. 

Sight, powers of, in different animals, 307. 

Siksigaluk, Eskimo interpreter, 107. 

Silence, the supposed, of arctic regions, 
19-20. 

Silsbee, George S., member of Polar Bear 
party, 99 ; visit from, at Martin Point, 
142. 

Simpson, Thomas, misinformation by, 21 ; 
description of Eskimo by, 471. 

Skin-boats, use of, for work in ice, 37. 

Skins, preparation of, for clothing, 390. 

Skis, use of, in polar work, 164-165 ; 
conditions where better than snow- 
shoes, 341 ; used in trip in spring of 
1917, 622. « 

Sled, made by Captain Bernard from 
Mary Sachs, 291-292. 

Sledboat, use of, 206-208. 

Sledges, weight of, for rough ice work, 
68; toboggan bottoms for, 221-222; 
material for shoes, 601-602. 

Sleeping-bags, method of using, 57. 

Sleeping in the cold, no danger from, 
455-456. 

Smelling powers of Eskimos, 59-60. 

Smith Sound, question of seals in, 135. 

Snowblindness, advice on, 200-202 ; suf- 
ferings of Andersen from, 525-526. 

Snow-eating, not dangerous, 191. 

Snowfall, amount of, in arctic regions, 13. 



INDEX 



781 



Snow glasses, 200-201, 497; Eskimo type 
of, 497, 501. 

Snowhouses, building of, 172-178 ; ad- 
vantages of, 283-284 ; of Copper Es- 
kimos, 418-420 ; an Eskimo's first 
experience with, 423-424 ; lessons in 
building, given by author, 434. 

Snowshoes, use of, in polar work, 165. 

Soundings, ocean, 216-217, 220-221. 

Sounding wire, most desirable sort of, 
171 ; lack of adequate, 274. 

Spitsbergen, glaciers in, 12. 

"Split-the-Wind," Eskimo called, 423. 
See Emiu. 

Stefansson, V., sails from Nome (July, 
1913), 27; arrival at Point Hope, 28; 
starts for Point Barrow, 28 ; visit to 
Cape Smythe, 35-40 ; boarding of 
Karluk off Cape Smythe, 41 ; voyage 
through the ice to Cross Island, 41-45 ; 
error made, in following Atlantic policy 
of navigation, 48 ; with Karluk caught 
in ice, leads hunting party ashore, 54- 
55 ; forms new plans, owing to dis- 
appearance of Karluk, 59 ; arrival at 
Point Barrow, 68 ; report made to 
Government at Ottawa (November, 
1913), 68-72; satisfactory reply re- 
ceived from Ottawa, 72 ; spring trip to 
Cape Halkett (1914), 79; crossing of 
Harrison Bay, 79-81 ; visit to Leffing- 
well at Flaxman Island, 86-90; arrival 
at CoUinson Point, 90; start eastward 
from CoUinson Point and meeting with 
Dr. Anderson, 96 ; conflict in views 
between Dr. Anderson and, 96-98 ; 
eastward trip continued, and meeting 
with Polar Bear party, 99-100 ; Christ- 
mas (1914) spent on whaler Belvedere, 
100-101 ; arrival at Herschel Island 
before New Year's, 103-104 ; joins 
Mounted Police patrol on trip to Fort 
Macpherson, 104 ; picks up Storker- 
son near Herschel Island, 107-108 ; 
visit to Pedersen and Mason, 108-109 ; 
called back from Fort Macpherson by 
CoUinson Point difficulties, 111-120; 
arrival at CoUinson Point and settle- 
ment of threatened mutiny of scientific 
staff, 120-122 ; difference in plans of, 
from those of other explorers, 126-138 ; 
trip to Martin Point and beginning of 
ice journey, 141-152 ; account of first 
fifty miles of travel on ice, 153-161 ; 
first snowhouse built by (April, 1914), 
172-179 ; breed of dogs preferred by, 
180-182 ; anxious day in May, 190-197 ; I 



first seal secured, 198 ; first poiar bears, 
211-216; sighting of land, 222-225; 
landing at Bernard Island (June 25, 
1914), 226-227; record placed in bea- 
con on Bernard Island, 237 ; summer 
in Banks Island, 237-260; journey 
along the coast to Cape Kellett, 260- 
265 ; finding of Mary Sachs at Cape 
Kellett, 266 ; news of remainder of 
expedition, 270-275 ; autumn hunt in 
Banks Island, 278-284 ; exploration 
of south end of Banks Island, 287-290; 
winter journey from Cape Kellett across 
McClure Strait to Prince Patrick Is- 
land, 293-299 ; mapping of Prince 
Patrick Island (June, 1915), 312-317; 
arrival at McClintock's farthest north, 
318; finding of record, 319-320; rec- 
ord left by author's party, 321-322; 
discovery of new land, 324-330 ; rec- 
ord left on new land, 330 ; exploration 
of new land, 331-336 ; discovery of 
Leffingwell Crags (June 20, 1915), 336- 
337 ; start on journey back to Cape 
Kellett, 338-350; landing at Mercy 
Bay, 359 ; traces of abandoned Inves- 
tigator found, 362-363 ; first crossing 
of Banks Island, 364-373; meeting 
with Captain Lane and Polar Bear at 
Cape Kellett, 374-375; first news of 
Great War, 375-378; chartering of 
Polar Bear, 379 ; news from outside, 
379-386 ; summer visit to Herschel 
Island (1915), 387-388; excitement 
caused by arrival at Herschel Island, 
388 ; purchase of Polar Bear, 393 ; 
return to Cape Kellett in Polar Bear, 
395 ; departure from Cape Kellett for 
the north, 397 ; winter quarters at 
Victoria Island, 399-404 ; autumn 
spent in Victoria Island, 405 ; injury 
from defective ammunition, 406-407 ; 
ethnological studies, 408-415, 466-471 ; 
visit to Copper Eskimos, 416-426 ; 
journey back to Cape Kellett, 435, 445; 
pronunciation of name, by Eskimos, 
441 ; news from Dr. Anderson, 445- 
447 ; eventful trip to Cape Alfred, 450- 
457 ; arrival at winter quarters of North 
Star, 457 ; winter preparations, 461- 
464 ; books carried by, 464-465 ; jour- 
ney along north coast of Banks Island, 
472-477, 488; finding of McClintock's 
record at Cape Fisher, 489 ; serious 
sprain of ankle, north of Cape Grassy, 
491 ; arrival at Cape Murray, 492 ; 
northward journey to explore new 



782 



INDEX 



land, 496 ; discovery of Meighen Island, 
517-524 ; start on southward journey, 
524 ; through Hassel Sound, 525 ; find- 
ing of MacMillan's record, 528-529 ; 
discovery of real extent of King Chris- 
tian Island, 532-536 ; discovery of 
Lougheed Island, 540—542; summer on 
Lougheed Island, 542-548; journey 
across ice to Melville Island, 548-561 ; 
meeting with friends and finding of 
coal, 562-570; finding of Bernier's 
depot at Winter Harbor, 576-578 ; win- 
ter of 1916-17 spent in Melville Island, 
594-597 ; northward exploration in 
1917, 608 ; experiences with members 
of party sick with scurvy, 614-619 ; 
finding of Bernier's beacon and record 
on Melville Island, 624-625; arrival 
at Kellett's depot on Dealy Island, 628- 
629; crossing of Melville Sound, 633; 
arrival at Knight Harbor, 636 ; finding 
of McClure's record near Knight Har- 
bor, 637-638 ; journey across Banks 
Island to Cape Kellett, 640-645; ac- 
count of loss of Bernard and Thomsen, 
646-654; story of events at Cape Kel- 
lett and destruction of Mary Sachs, 
655-662; arrival at Cape Kellett of 
schooner Challenge, and her purchase, 
663 ; overtaking oi Polar Bear, 664-665 ; 
arrival at Herschel Island (September, 
1917), and voyage to Barter Island, 
670-671 ; stranding of Polar Bear, 671- 
672; exploring plans for 1917-18 in- 
terrupted by illness with typhoid fever 
and pnuemonia at Herschel Island, 676- 
681 ; journey of recovery to Fort 
Yukon, 681-685; kindness of residents 
of Fort Yukon during three naonths' 
convalescence, 685-686 ; return to New 
York and Toronto (autumn, 1919), 686; 
outstanding results of expedition, 687 ; 
paper on "Region of Maximum Inac- 
cessibility in the Arctic," 731-736. 

Sten, Christian, attention called by, to 
Eskimos of peculiar type, 468. 

Stewart, Kenneth, Hudson's Bay trader, 
676. 

Stokes Company, F. A., books contributed 
by, 464. 

Storkerson, Martina, 270. 

Storkerson, Storker T., meeting with, 
107-108 ; engaged for author's expe- 
dition, 108 ; qualifications of, as mem- 
ber of expedition, 112 ; support given 
author by, 138 ; member of author's 
final party on ice journey northward. 



163 ; map of Bernard Island made by, 
235 ; author's expression of gratitude 
to, and appreciation of, 236 ; unused 
to loneliness, 258 ; chosen for winter ice 
party of 1915, 294; discovery of new 
land by, 327-330; ranking member of 
Polar Bear party, 396 ; survey of north- 
east coast of Victoria Island by, 404, 
406, 407-408, 430-431, 478; ice trip 
of, northwest from Gore Islands, 461, 
462, 463, 477; children of, 470; ex- 
perience in eating bear liver, 481 ; plans 
made for, in spring of 1916, 492-494 ; 
report from, received at Cape Murray, 
565 ; good survey work done by, 567 ; 
leaves for Cape Grassy, 590 ; misad- 
ventures of, on Cape Grassy trip, 592- 
593 ; treatment of, by Captain Gon- 
zales, 657-658 ; survey of Victoria 
Island coast nearly completed by, 658 ; 
unofficial position of, on author's ships, 
670 ; account by, from magazine article, 
of six months of drifting in Beaufort 
Sea, 689-703. 

Storkerson, Mrs. S. T., at Cape Kellett, 
270; winter activities of, 291. 

Storkerson Bay, discovery and naming 
of, 263. 

Stuck, Hudson, 470, 681 ; cited concern- 
ing Eskimos, 432; "A Winter Circuit 
of Our Arctic Coast" by, quoted, 581, 
684-685; books of, 605; quoted on 
"hardships" of the North, 606 ; meeting 
with, on way to Fort Yukon, 684. 

Sugar, replacing of fat by, in diet, 232, 
355-356, 652 ; distasteful to natives at 
Victoria Island, 366; transfer of, from 
North Star to Polar Bear, 461-462 ; tastes 
of Polar Bear party in, 462 ; depots 
of, abandoned, 473 ; finding of, left at 
Kellett's depot in 1853, 629-630. 

Sugar sandwiches, 100. 

Summer heat in arctic regions, 15-16. 

Superstitions, so-called, of Eskimos, 89, 
107, 409-415, 439-442; white men's, 
concerning danger of going to sleep in 
cold, when lost, 455-456. 

Sverdrup, Otto, estimate by, of snowfall 
of Ellesmere Island, 13 ; quoted on 
ovibos (musk-ox) , 238 ; explanation by, 
of diseases of dogs, 427 ; game encoun- 
tered by, 502 ; quoted on height of 
pressure ridges, 514 ; mistake in map 
of, showing Crown Prince Gustav Sea, 
517 ; non-existence of King Christian 
Land of map of, 535 ; change in atti- 
tude of, toward the North, 572-573; 



f 



INDEX 



783 



experiences with German silver shoeing 

for sledges, 601. 
Sweeney, Captain, of the Alaska, 378. 
Sweets, dislike of Eskimos for, 366. 
Swenson, Olaf, generosity of, in going to 

rescue of Karluk survivors, 726-730. 

Takpuk, Eskimo reindeer owner, 36. 

Taliak, Eskimo supporter of cause of mis- 
sionaries, 105-106, 109, 111. 

Taptuna, young Copper Eskimo, 426 ; at 
author's winter base at Victoria Island, 
427-429. 

Tea, as drunk by Eskimos, 429 ; drinking 
of, in arctic work, 556-557. 

Teeth, effect of North on the, 411; of 
Eskimos, 414. 

Tent rings of Eskimos, 256, 367. 

Tents, methods of use, 199. 

Terns in Banks Island, 365. 

Terror Island, off Banks Island, 263. 

Thomsen, Annie, daughter of Charles 
Thomsen, 270. 

Thomsen, Charles, 87, 90, 139 ; with Mary 
Sachs party at Cape Kellett, 268, 270; 
chosen for winter ice party of 1915, 294 ; 
training in seal hunting by, 316 ; break- 
ing of salt and tobacco habits by, 365- 
366 ; fondness of, for caribou marrow, 
366 ; with Captain Bernard at Cape 
Kellett base, 396 ; experience in eating 
bear liver, 481 ; attempted trip of, from 
Cape Kellett to Liddon Gulf, 599 ; tragic 
story of death of, 646-654; finding of 
body of, by Castel, 651 ; graveof, 652, 653. 

Thomsen, Mrs. Charles, at Cape Kellett, 
270 ; winter activities of, 291. 

Tides, on Banks Island, 223-224; obser- 
vation of, by Wilkins at Cape Kellett, 
290 ; in Melville Straits, 408 ; on Hassel 
Sound, 528. 

Tilton, Captain, 47. 

TitaUk, Minto Inlet Eskimo girl, 370. 

Tobacco, spread of habit among Eskimos, 
40 ; use of, by Eskimo women, 64 ; users 
of, not wanted on polar expedition, 365. 

Toboggan bottoms for sleds, 221-222; 
proved advantages of, 341. 

Traveling methods in the North, contrasts 
in, 602-607. 

Tree River, exploration of, 747-748. 

Trout, lake, fish resembling, caught by 
Copper Eskimos, 420. 

Tulugak, Eskimo at Shingle Point, 468. 

Tupper, Inspector, of Mounted Police, 
675, 677, 680. 

Tumunirohirmuit, Eskimo people, 422. I 



Ugrug (bearded seal), killed at Bernard 

Island, 235. 
Ulahula River, 92 ; derivation of name, 

92 n. ; amateur game-hunting trip up 

the, 92-93. 
Umiaks, skin-boats, 37. 

Vegetables, antiscorbutic value of, 594 ; 
tinned, found in Kellett's depot at Dealy 
Island, 631. 

Vegetation in arctic regions, 16-17. 

Victoria Island, winter quarters of Polar 
Bear (1915), 399-400; proposed ex- 
ploration of, 400 ; caribou on, 401 ; 
survey of northeast coast of, by Stor- 
kerson, 404, 406, 407-408, 430-431, 478 ; 
the autumn in, 405-415. 

Vitamine theory and the Northern diet, 
411. 

Voiki, Fred, boy with Storkerson on drift- 
ing expedition, 695, 696. 

Walker Bay, winter quarters of Polar Bear, 
• 598. 

Walrus, found by Sverdrup, 502. 

War. See Great War. 

Water, fresh, secured from sea ice, 31-32, 
166, 547. 

Whale, carcass of, at Banks Island, 285- 
287. 

Whalers, discouraging attitude of, toward 
author's projected ice trip, 130-131. 

Whales, large schools of, in polar waters, 
208-209, 217; school of bowhead be- 
tween Herschel Island and Cape Bath- 
urst, 387-388 ; wasteful use of, for fer- 
tihzer, 389. 

Whaling industry, destruction of, 388-389. 

Whitney, Caspar, 243. 

Wilkins, George H., characteristics of, 55 ; 
antarctic venture of, 73 ; creditable 
showing made by, on first winter journey, 
90 ; support given author by, 139 ; loss 
of, to northward expedition, 150-151 ; 
in command of Mary Sachs at Cape Kel- 
lett, 270 ; disobedience of author's orders 
by, and reasons, 271-272 ; magazine 
article b5^ quoted on finding of author 
at Banks Island, 275-277 ; hunting with, 
in Banks Island, 279-284 ; scientific 
work accomplished by, at Cape Kellett, 
290-291 ; as a hard worker, 291 ; as- 
signed to fetch North Star from Coro- 
nation Gulf to Banks Island, 295 ; news 
of, from Eskimo party in Banks Island, 
370; rejoins author at Cape Kellett, 
445 ; account by, of experiences in re- 



784 



INDEX 



fl 



gard to Dr. Anderson and North Star, 
446-447 ; winter base on North Star as 
arranged by, 457-458 ; leaves expedition, 
487-488 ; subsequent career, 488 n. ; 
report from, on favorable conditions at 
Polar Bear, 565 ; Prince Albert Sound 
Eskimos photographed by, 566 ; studies 
of Eskimo life and photographs made by, 
745. 

Winter Harbor, depot of Captain Bernier 
at, 576-578. 

Wittenberg, Leo, part owner of schooner 
Challenge, 598 ; arrival at Cape Kellett 
in autumn of 1917, 663 ; nurses author 
during illness at Herschel Island, 679. 

Wolki, Fritz, owner of Rosie H., 387 n. ; a 
believer in author's death, 388 ; schooner 
Gladiator bought of, 394. 

Wolves, in arctic regions, 17 ; method of, 
in hunting caribou, 227 ; action of cari- 
bou herds when hunted by, 248-249 ; 
eyesight of, 307 ; intelligence of, con- 
trasted with lack of wisdom of foxes. 



333-334; example of sagacity of, 354; 

refusal of, to eat newly dead bear, 575 ; 

cannot kill ovibos, 575. 
Women, Eskimo : use of tobacco by, 64 ; 

age of maturity of, 75-79 ; as seam- 
stresses, 390-391 ; deaths among, from 

childbearing, 423. 
Wood, distinction between hard and soft, 

as to usefulness, by Eskimos, 360-361. 
Wrangel, Baron, lessons from journey of, 

130-131. 
Wrangel Island, 189 ; rescue of Karluk 

party at, 721-730. 
Wright, Orville, airplane plan of rescue 

discouraged by, 383. 
Wynniatt, of McClure's expedition, 430; 

the farthest west of, 478. 

Yellow Knife Indians, characteristics of, 

78. 
Young, Mr., missionary at Herschel Island, 

107. 
Yukon River, Eskimo name for, 442. 



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